


the broken, unyielding

by izabellwit



Series: goodbye, old friend [2]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Caleb Widogast is a Mess, Caleb Widogast's Backstory, Canon Compliant, Found Family, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Identity Issues, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Mental Health Issues, Mental Institutions, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Caleb Widogast, Past Abuse, Past Astrid/Bren/Eodwulf, Past Brainwashing, Past Relationship(s), Reunions, Self-Loathing Caleb Widogast, Team Dynamics, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-31
Updated: 2019-10-06
Packaged: 2020-10-04 01:48:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 22,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20463032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/izabellwit/pseuds/izabellwit
Summary: Some meetings are fated to happen; some pasts are too great to outrun. Bren Aldric Ermendrud knows that better than most.Sixteen years after the fire, Caleb Widogast encounters a familiar face.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The Mighty Nein has my wholeeeee heart. 
> 
> This is a sequel/side story to my other fic, _the cruel, unbreaking_, which details Astrid's pov and experience of these events. If you would like to read that first, you can find it [**here!**](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20262208/chapters/48025960)
> 
> **Warning:** This fic deals heavily in Caleb's backstory and all issues therein, and because it's in his pov, and he's internalized a lot of awful lessons, there's also a pretty poor handling of mental health issues all around. Caleb is better than Astrid, at least, in unlearning things, but elements of that are still there.

The day is a simple one, filled with traveling and talking and little else. Simple, and boring, and warm. He spends his hours seated in the back of the cart, a book in hand and his coat tugged up over his head in a vain attempt to ward off the beating sunshine. The paper is rough against his palm, and Nott a little ball curled against his side; Jester, as expected, leans over his shoulder and tries relentlessly to badger him into conversation. Caleb is too fond of her now to brush her off like he used to, but that doesn’t make it any less annoying, so he compromises by graciously letting her use his shoulder, and making sure to sigh every few seconds so she knows that  _ yes, Jester, I can still hear you, please stop talking. _

Across from him, Beauregard and Fjord are in deep conversation over a map, jumping back and forth between planning and half-hearted griping about the road. Caduceus, driving the cart, hums a cheery tune under his breath. In this way the time passes by them, lazy and kind.

They set up camp late, in the fading hours of the sun, and Caleb draws the thread of his alarm spell across their surroundings less from actual paranoia and more from habit. Beau takes first watch; Fjord takes second; Jester and Nott conspire together to take the third. The night divided, their evening set. Caduceus stirs up a stew and his ever-present tea, and Caleb settles by the fire, book in hand and ears open to their conversation. By the time the sky is dark, the book is closed on his lap, and his voice has joined with the others.

He goes to sleep early, the pale flicker of the fire dancing behind his eyes. He is calm, and happy. His dreams are quiet.

When the alarm spell  _ snaps  _ under the wave of a blistering magical attack, one hour out to dawn, he has barely seconds to throw up a shield before the earth buries them all.

.

From the moment he is old enough to know what it is, Bren is in love with magic. He hounds the few travelers that come through their town for stories and shows, digging through old books for any hints of the arcane, swiping his fingers through fire as if that is enough to learn it. He loves the idea of it, the feel of it, the singsong thrill of it. Magic can do anything. Magic can do  _ everything _ . Maybe if he learns enough, he can do anything too.

His mother laughs, when he tells her that. Pushes back his hair, and kisses his forehead. “I’m sure you will,” she says, soft and proud, and he smiles up at her so wide his cheeks hurt. “My dear boy, I have always believed you could do anything you wanted, magic or not.”

“But magic will help!”

She laughs again, her hand warm on his shoulder. “That is true, too,” she says, and he feels warm, inside and out. If his mother says he’s right, then surely it is so.

That night, he sits before the fire and swipes his fingers through. The flames flicker and the heat prickles. And for a brief moment, the flames cling to his hand like a glove.

Bren snatches his hand back, and smiles.

.

The alarm spell is almost too late—he has seconds after it snaps him awake to react, and seconds are not enough. But for once, his ever-present paranoia serves him well. Seconds are not enough, but he has cast this spell so often he could almost do it in his sleep. His hands raise up, words of power hissed under his breath, the shield spell rising to his defense— 

_ (The others,  _ he thinks, a horrified mantra in the back of his mind, but there is nothing he can do.)

The earth upheaves and topples them, and Caleb is almost too late.

His head is spinning, his nerves screaming, suspicion and fear and ever-present terror beating beneath it all. More than that: anger, low and sour under his tongue, burning behind his ribcage. They are being attacked, there is someone out there  _ trying to kill them,  _ and if anyone gets hurt on this morning Caleb is going to burn those responsible alive, catatonic aftermath be damned.

He throws the strongest fire spell he knows at the figure he can see approaching from about a mile off—the distant humanoid silhouette of the spellcaster that threw their camp into chaos—and his mouth runs dry when it fails. Counterspell. There will be no fire here.

The causal strength of their attacker only serves to terrify and anger him more. They are so strong—but  _ damn  _ them for it, for taking a spell Caleb has such fond memories of, and using it against him.

The next tremor in the earth is targeted, direct. The force of it sends him to his knees, and he uses the moment to grab his diamond from his pouch, murmuring under his breath. From the corner of his eyes, he can see his friends—Fjord, hefting up his sword with gritted teeth; Jester with her eyes blazing, a gleaming radiant lollipop manifesting above her head, Caduceus looking dazed but standing steady on his feet. Beauregard sets her feet, fists raised, ready to fight; Nott is by her side, her crossbow unlatched and loaded—

—and then, someone else. Someone new, someone  _ right behind them _ —and Caleb blanks, his breath stuttering. There is someone behind them, and his mind is whirling, remembering a foe they couldn’t see, Charm Person and the awful aftermath, and  _ fuck _ , this is bad, this is an enemy spellcaster with Invisibility and  _ Bren knows this strategy— _

He is already turning to shout a warning, the fire spell completed on his tongue, feeling the magic build up in the air—they’ll slaughter each other,  _ gods,  _ he has to hurry—and the spell falls apart in his hands.

It is a mistake. It is a slip. It is a critical error in judgment, and it doesn’t matter, because the enemy stops too. The stranger choking on his tongue, going silent, going still, going dead quiet. Staring right at Caleb.

.

His one year at the Academy flies by faster than he can blink. He is young, and brilliant, and bright. He reads ahead and picks up spells faster than he can snap, asks questions that leave the teachers stuttering for an answer, and spends night after night in the library. He reaches for anything he can find. He takes all he is given. He wants to know it all, he wants to know everything; he wants to prove he belongs.

One day, he will leave this place. One day, he will be more. He will reach heights only dreamed of, and he will fulfill every promise, every childish wish. He will succeed in every expectation.

It is who he’s meant to be. Who he’s meant to become. From the moment he swiped his hand through the flames, from the moment magic came at his call, he’s known this. Bren is meant for more.

.

He thinks:  _ Eodwulf. _

He is frozen. His breath stilled. His hands shaking. Eodwulf. It—it must be. He is older, grimmer, taller, and yet—gods, he knows that face.  _ He knows it. _

And by the way Eodwulf is staring, he knows Bren, too.

He knows him, and the recognition seems to gut him. All the color has drained from Eodwulf’s face; his dark eyes are wide and listless. “No,” Eodwulf breathes, and Bren is still, he’s stone, he’s frozen cold.

Eodwulf’s voice is distant, fearful. Bren’s silver-tongued friend, now reduced to a stuttering whisper. “No,” Eodwulf says, and he doesn’t even seem to notice the way Nott and Beauregard jump, the way the rest of the group whirls around, alerted to his presence. Eodwulf’s eyes are fixed right on him. His voice wavers, stuttering and horrified. “Wait, you can’t be, you are—are you—?”

Beauregard launches herself at Eodwulf with a yell and a fist held high. 

Caleb snaps out of it. He moves on autopilot, throws open his hand to aims a firebolt at Eodwulf’s head, but his hands have started to shake and his mind is tunneling, and the blast hits the earth instead. The rocks explode out in a blistering wave. Caduceus throws out another spell and Nott releases her crossbow, and in the crossfire Eodwulf cries out and then goes silent, falling forward, motionless in the dirt. 

He has to move, Caleb thinks. He has to move, to speak—he tries to talk and the words catch in his throat, language gone, words stolen. His breathing has gone funny. His ears are ringing. 

Beauregard catches him around the waist. “Get down!” she shouts, and the world flips once again. 

.

He sends his parents letters, when he can. Writes to them about his lessons, his day, his thoughts and fears. They send him advice and well wishes and homemade bread wrapped in thin cloth, and those meals are his favorite. He shares the bread with Astrid and Eodwulf, less because he knows them well and more because they are all from the same place and as such will appreciate it, and those same meals draw them together.

They were friends once, as children, and in those academy nights they become friends again. Remembering old stories and old neighbors, ribbing each other over silly antics from when they were young, correcting each other’s coursework. He learns to love it—the night air, cold against his face; his parents’ cooking, warm in his belly; Astrid’s clipped speech but warm eyes, the dimple in her smiles and the severe slant to her nose; Eodwulf’s nervous habits but sly and charming speech, his broad shoulders and open hands. He learns to love them.

And in those quiet nights, Bren thinks he always will.

.

He hits the ground hard and gasps for breath, his mind blank, thoughts swarming. Eodwulf. Eodwulf is here, he is unconscious and spelled asleep and he is  _ here  _ and that means—that means—

The earth shakes and his heart goes cold.  _ Astrid,  _ he thinks, and tears up onto his feet. Memories and knowing and stone-cold certainty: she has always been the most destructive of them, barring Bren himself, and if he doesn’t hurry—

He throws up a shield and the ground breaks apart seconds after, shrapnel scattering around them. Fjord cries out; Nott gives a yelp of pain. By his side, Beauregard hisses a vicious curse under her breath. Caleb barely notices. He’s on his feet, already running forward; she’s caught up to them, she’s  _ here,  _ and Eodwulf’s body has already vanished.

His thoughts have gone dark, his words lost. There is no logic in why he runs forward, no rhyme or reason, just knowing. Astrid is here. She will kill them. He can’t—he can’t let her—

She’s turning, her hands raised, her eyes flinty. Dressed in a pressed red uniform, her hair cut short and fine, slicked away from her face. She looks older. Colder. Just as handsome, and just as deadly, and he has never been so terrified.

He knows the instant she sees him, too. She stops the same way Eodwulf did, and for a brief, awful moment, her expression flickers. Cruel hatred giving way to shock. To surprise. To grief. 

“Bren?” she says, and he stands there, silent, and says nothing at all, his words wrung dry and empty.

Stands there, and does not answer.

.

There are no doubts. There is never any doubt, until it is too late. Bren is certain and if he is certain then he must be right. He is too clever, too smart, to be wrong. He knows too much. (His mother said so.)

He smiles when they get drawn from class, smiles wider when he hears the news. They have been chosen, all three of them. Bren, Astrid, and Eodwulf—the new students of Trent Ikithon. It is expected. It is flattering. He remembers magic and power and knows it is exactly what he’s always wanted.

There are no doubts. Astrid and Eodwulf’s place by his side and at his back, the weight of Master Ikithon’s proud hand at his shoulder. The congratulations of his teachers, and the beaming pride of his parents. There are never any doubts at all. Bren has always been meant for this. He has always meant to become this. He has always been meant for great things. 

He stands tall under the weight of his new teacher’s gaze, and knows this is exactly where he’s meant to be.

.

She realizes her mistake too late, the same time Bren does. Her hands fly up, but Fjord is already swinging, and when she dodges his blade all it does is bring her right into Beauregard’s path. Beauregard is already prepared to strike—so fast, always so fast, and some quiet part of him is helplessly grateful for it—and he watches, numb, as the quarterstaff cracks across Astrid’s skull. 

Astrid staggers and drops, but even then, Bren can see her eyes flicker, her consciousness returning. He snaps a hand to his pocket, digging fitfully—sees Astrid rise, her teeth grit, her eyes wild—closes his fingers around loose cold grains of sand, and casts. 

She is too dizzy to dodge. Too injured to realize. The sleep spell hits her head-on.

Astrid staggers again, the strain visible on her face. He can feel it—her will fighting his, and he thinks,  _ gods, this is it, she will beat me,  _ because he knows Astrid and he knows she is strong, and if Beauregard’s blow wasn’t damaging enough, then—

Astrid stumbles. She slips. She falls to her knees and stares blindly up at him, and then her eyes flutter closed and she slumps.

There is no relief. He feels struck, stabbed through, glued to the ground. When a small hand tugs at his coat sleeve, he almost topples.

“Caleb?” Nott asks, and her victorious smile is fading. “Caleb, are you all right?”

He can’t look at her, or Beauregard, or Jester. The three that would recognize the name. He claps a hand over his mouth and breathes through his fingers, drags himself together, and then forces the words through his teeth. 

“Astrid,” and then, before they can freeze or shout or—or— or anything else, he says, “We have to—Vollstrecker— chain her.” 

“Caleb—”

“Hurry,” he whispers. He feels like ash in the wind. “Take her spellbooks, chain her hands—hurry.  _ Hurry.”  _ They only have a minute. They have no time, and at his reminder the group shifts—grabbing chains, Nott slipping forward like a shadow for Astrid’s body, ready to steal her weapons, Beauregard positioning them in a circle, her hand heavy on his shoulder, her voice a low hiss in his ears. 

“I hope you know what you’re doing, Caleb.”

He stands there, looking at Astrid, counting down the seconds. Reading all the years between them in her aged face. Cold all the way to his bones, to his heart, to his blood. Breathing. Trying to breathe. Trying to think. Trying to stay in the here and now, rather than the then, the last time he saw her, the last time he called her friend. 

He curls his hands into shaking fists, and pretends he can’t see flames.

.

.

.

_ When he lunges for the door, Astrid and Eodwulf catch him almost at once. They drag him back and pin him to the ground, merciless, angry. Their hands like a vice around his arms, their voices a din in his ears. Even then, he can still hear it. The screaming. His parents, his lovely parents: dying.  _

_ “Bren,” Astrid snarls, and she is cold, she is furious, she is ugly in a way he has never known her—her face twisted in a snarl, her eyes bright and cruel. “Bren, stop it! Shut up! What are you doing!?” _

_ “Let them go, Bren,” Eodwulf is saying, beside her. His mouth pursed, his eyes disappointed. His voice is soft, and the pity there makes his skin crawl. “You’re stronger than this, my friend. Stop fighting. You know this needs to happen.” _

_ They speak, but Bren isn’t listening. His mind is blank, roaring with the rising flames. The screams ringing in his ears, his mother’s voice gone hoarse and thin, calling his father’s name. His father, crying. Just crying. _

_ “Una, please, Una, run!” _

_ “The door! Oh gods, Leofric, the door is—!” _

_ There is fire, and ash, and voices crying out. There is a house, burning down to embers, and as his friends drag him away and throw him ruthlessly on the ground, Bren lies in the dust and thinks:  _ I’m killing them.

_ I did this, he thinks. I set the fire. I am burning this house to the ground, and I am killing them. _

_ There is a reason. He knows there is. A reason he came here today, a reason he set this fire with steady hands and a cold determination. The reason Astrid and Eodwulf are so angry, their voices so betrayed. So many reasons, so many meanings. But now that reason is gone. His certainty like smoke in the wind.  _

_ He grew up in this house. He ran through the halls and skidded down the stairs, slammed shut the burning door. His father used to carry him on his shoulders so he could reach the ceiling; his mother used to swing him up and around whenever he came racing home. He used to dart his hands through the flames in the fireplace, and his father would scold him and his mother would laugh, push back his hair and say— _

_ Bren’s parents are dead. He has killed them. He set this fire with steady hands, and watched the blaze burn gold against the black night. He did it with a smile. He did it with righteousness in his heart. _

_ He did this. _

_ His fingers curl in the dirt. His face is wet, his throat sore. His screams have run out, his voice finally silenced. Astrid and Eodwulf drag him to his feet, and he stands with shaking hands. His eyes empty. His heart cold. _

I did this _ , he thinks. I did this. _

_ And deep inside, behind the eyes, beneath the smoke and the screaming and the flame— _

_ He shatters. _


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Astrid gets away, and Caleb... deals.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love Caleb very much, but his thought process is killing me. He thinks... so much. Dear god. Someone please stop him. 
> 
> Anyway, in other news, I got past episode 26. Thought I was ready; really, _really_ wasn't. Damn it, Molly. (It happened so fast!! I thought I'd see it coming and have time to prepare but NO!!!! Arghh.)
> 
> Caduceus is fun though. I love him already. I mean, no idea whatsoever how to write him, but like. He's the best. Hands down. He's said three lines and already stolen my heart. (I too am a tea-lover. Caduceus... he understands.)
> 
> **Warnings** for: the asylum and all the bad stuff attached with that, Caleb's rather intense brand of self-hatred and loathing, Caleb's backstory in general... etc. Please let me know if there's anything else I might have missed, though, and I'll add it on here!

By the time Caleb understands what is happening, Fjord has already wrestled him to the ground. 

It is… he notices it, of course, recognizes the how and the why of their logic: Caleb to their eyes has gone batshit, and they are minimizing the damage. But the rest of him— most of him— is entirely elsewhere, blank with panic. Fjord is wrestling him to the ground, and he is fighting it, yes, but also— Caleb is not here, presently. Caleb is freaking out. Astrid is gone and Beauregard has vanished, and Beauregard has  _ run off with Astrid _ and gods,  _ fuck _ , he knows what she’s doing. 

That idiot! Oh, yes, he knows. He understands Beauregard too well, by this point. This stupid, foolish plan of hers… It’s the same reason she dragged back his arm, the same reason she stopped him from killing Astrid. She saw him react, and react badly, and thought to keep a months-old promise rather than take the path most logical and this is  _ his _ fault, all his fault. 

Caleb should have explained. He should have told them, should have—they are letting loose an enemy who poured poisoned wine for her beloved family and sat calm as they suffocated, a woman who only seconds ago looked him in the eye and said she was proud of it— _ they are letting Astrid go _ and oh, no, no.

“Let me go!” he shouts, or tries to, but his words are fading fast and he can barely understand himself. He fights like a man possessed, pulling ineffectively at Fjord’s grip at his wrists. It is so, so stupid—he is stronger than Fjord, or at least he used to be— but even then, he cannot break the grip, he cannot get out, he cannot. Beauregard vanished minutes ago. Nott, seconds later. He needs to get free. He needs to stop them, before Astrid is let loose and this fragile peace he’s built here finally falls apart.

“Let me  _ go!” _

The dusty and smoldering dirt of their campsite grinds into the back of his head, collects and chokes in his throat. The stench of fire and burning earth hangs heavy in the air. The heat blisters at him, sends his skin crawling, his nerves alight. The bitter taste of smoke is strong enough to make him gag.

“Get off of me!” Caleb shouts, and tries desperately to throw Fjord off. Phantom pain spikes through his shoulder from where Beauregard twisted his arm back. “Let me go, I have to—you don’t understand—let me  _ GO!” _

He cannot see Astrid anywhere, and that terrifies him. Astrid, Beauregard,  _ Nott— _ where are they? Where have they gone? He sent Frumpkin to follow them but he is too frazzled to peer through his familiar’s eyes, and the not-knowing hollows him, leaves him breathless with grit-toothed terror. Astrid is loose, she is free, she has no regret to her, no good left in her, and if she is free then—then—

Fjord is talking to him, trying to answer, but all his words cut off to a sharp wheeze when Caleb’s elbow drives into his gut. There is the briefest flash of guilt— _ god,  _ of course he is hurting Fjord, of course he does not hesitate, Bren is as terrible as Astrid—but he shakes it off, lunges back to his feet. Regret is for later. Apologies and explanations for another time. He cannot let this family burn down around him, not again, not while he can still fix this.

He lurches to his feet and makes for the woods, but he barely gets two steps before the others crowd him. Jester at his back, her voice high and nervous; Caduceus before him, hands up, brow furrowed but stance steady. 

“Wait, wait, just a moment, please,” Caduceus says. He looks uncertain, his expression strained, but he reaches out and keeps Caleb caged in the circle of their friends. Ever the one to wait to react, but Caleb has no time left to lose. “I think… we all just need to sit down and, ah, talk this through—”

Caleb spares a moment to hate himself for the idea, and in the next he is executing it. Bren throws his arm in a wild haymaker, and Caduceus’s plea cuts off with a yelp. 

Bren stumbles past, breathing heavy, his heartbeat pounding in his ears. He feels sick. His hands are shaking. There is a distant roar in the back of his mind. But there is no time for this. No time at all. 

Astrid will kill them, unless he gets to her first. He  _ needs _ to get there first. He needs to find her. Anything he does until then— he can and he will apologize for it, but first, but first: He needs to get there. 

He needs to end this, aftermath be damned. 

Bren limps towards the woods, ignoring the pain, digging blindly through his pockets for the necessary components. With each step, he wavers in and out of Frumpkin’s vision— sees Astrid, the faint flicker of her through the trees— the  phosphorus is in his hands, now, power sparking at his fingertips— all he needs is a visual, a second to cast, and then—!

“Duceus, hit him!”

He turns too late.

The sleep spell catches him in the side. It washes over him like a dream—not so much an attack as a suggestion, the cool medicinal tongue of Caduceus’s magic washing over him, dragging him down. His arm screams in pain. His head aches. His knees are bruised from Astrid’s first attack, and the smoke in the air makes his hands shake.

He fights it. He tries. He is angry and determined and  _ he needs to get there in time, he has to— _ but above all else he is hurt, and tired, and at last the spell drags him under.

He thinks:  _ Of course you used my own spell against me.  _ The same way he downed Astrid. He’d almost be proud, if he wasn’t so terrified.

Then the fog rises, and the dream takes him, and for a brief, wonderful moment, he doesn’t think anything at all.

.

Bren knows where he is, even if they think he doesn’t. He knows. The memories are distant and broken and bladed in his mind, but they are still there. Still his. 

Bren remembers. He remembers it all. (He has always had such a wonderful memory.)

The asylum is a cold, unfeeling place. Boring and empty and cruel. His awareness, or what is left of it, dims more each passing day. There is nothing here. Cold light and white sheets and scornful whispers, and day by day, he sinks a little bit more under the haze. The asylum is a terrible place, and he hates it, but if there is anything good about it, it’s that Master Ikithon is not here.

He was there in the beginning— Bren remembers that. Astrid and Eodwulf had dragged him back after he broke before the fire, and for weeks after Master Ikithon tried to fix him. And Bren had hurt. It had hurt, but it did not work, because all the memory spells in the world can’t pull together a mind shattered by the truth. The very idea— the very memory of it— sometimes makes Bren want to laugh. 

_ What did you think you were doing, teacher?  _ he would say, if he had the words for it, if Master Ikithon was still around to hear.  _ What did you think you could do? Convince me I did not kill them? Tell me it did not matter?  _ An arrogance he used to think of as rightful pride; a scorn like embers, weaving through each angry whisper.  _ And here I thought you knew better. _

(Bren thinks: These are traitorous thoughts, but what does it matter. What is he betraying, now? He’s not even sure if he still believes in anything.)

So the asylum— the asylum is not the worst. Not the worst place to be. But it is not better, either. Bren knows where he is. He knows what they did with him. He knows exactly what this means. They’ve locked him away and shut the door, left him behind in a place of cold stone and colder faces. They’ve left him here. Left him to wither, and to die.

He knows why he’s here— and he does not bother fighting it. The world fades under the fog, breaks apart under the living memories of fire and smoke. Bren blinks and the world changes. He blinks, and the sky shifts. Bren is losing time for the first time in his life, and still, cannot care enough to find it again. Even if he could, why bother? There is nothing here worth waking for. He tries to speak, but no one is listening. He tries to open his eyes, but no one is there. 

His family is dead, and he killed them. What more is there to know?

The years pass. The years build. The years drift away, until one day the door opens, and someone else is left there with him. A stranger, here to stay. A woman they strap to the bed and curse under their breath, who laughs and laughs as the healers slam shut the heavy doors.

“Hello, stranger,” she says, and  _ this _ , this he will remember— her voice, bright and unwavering, loud enough to shatter the silence. “Fine weather we’re having, isn’t it?”

.

Caleb opens his eyes and knows, at once, that he is too late. The artificial drag of the sleep spell breaks free from his mind, and what is left is clarity _ .  _ He fell. He blacked out. He’s run out of time that he didn’t even have, and he is— he is— 

He is too late. 

He’s not alone, however: the others are around him. Jester, looking worried; Fjord, chewing at his lip; Caduceus, his nose bloody from where Caleb hit him, his brow furrowed. They are looking down on him, but it is just them— Nott and Beauregard are nowhere to be seen, and neither is—and Caleb cannot think about that, he does not want to, and so he scrambles to his feet and shouts instead.

“Where are they!”

His chest feels tight, his heartbeat fluttery and rapid in his ears. He can’t breathe right. His palms are slick. No one answers, and his voice rises. “Where  _ are _ they!?”

Jester sidles forward, and her expression is tight. She casts little glances over her shoulder and something in his gut drops. “Do you mean Nott and Beau?” she asks, carefully, and her expression flickers. “Or, um—”

“They are together, aren’t they?” He means it as a simple question, and is almost surprised by how angry he sounds instead. He sees Jester flinch, and it is—it is like a knife to the gut but he can’t stop, he can’t. “You took her—you let Astrid go—you—”

“I thought you loved Astrid, though,” Jester says, and her brow furrows, something stubborn entering her eyes. Her uncertainty overridden by a need to know. “But then, back there, you— Caleb, we just wanted to figure things out! You aren’t making any sense!”

He tries to speak, to tell her. It doesn’t matter that he once loved Astrid, that he once loved Eodwulf, that they meant something—it doesn’t matter, and why should it? It doesn’t change a thing, doesn’t change what they’ve become or what they’ll do, and—but he’s losing it, now, the words and the logical track of mind, and when he tries to speak his throat closes up. He can’t… he can’t do this.

He turns away and ignores her, blocks his ears to her anger, the hurt at being slighted, “ _ Cay-leb!” _ —turns to the woods, instead, his hands curled into fists, and feels his blood run cold. Because there, through the trees— there, in the shadows of the sunrise— he can see two figures, walking back out of the woods.

_ Beauregard,  _ he thinks.  _ Nott,  _ he thinks. And then, the realization, a stone in his gut— 

No Astrid.

.

Years later, when he tells this story, he will not say the woman healed him. 

He will not say she cured his madness, or that she mended his mind. He will never speak of healing, because—because it is not true, not really, and he thinks some part of him will always be mad, always a little broken, always a little bit shattered behind the eyes. 

So: he does not say this. She, after all, didn’t say that either. Her hands, cupping his face, her smile bright—  _ let me help you.  _ Not heal, not fix, not mend.  _ Let me help. _

He will say: “She took the clouds away,” and that is the closest he will ever come to describing it. That strange, not-quite waking. The way her magic, cold as a winter brook, soothed the storm of his shattered thoughts. Eased away the sting of his own grief, his own guilt. Drew him, gently, from himself again.

_ She took the clouds away. _

He remembers—hands, cool on his face, a soft voice only vaguely familiar. A voice that spoke more often than others, in those last weeks of unyielding madness. The dizzy image of a smiling face, viewed through half-lidded eyes. What he does remember— of her, of the asylum— is in truth very little. He sees nothing, in those days. Even if his eyes are open, he is not seeing. Not really hearing. It is just an awareness. Just a knowing. 

He doesn’t care, then. By that point, he hasn’t cared about anything for a very long time. He doesn’t care to open his eyes or his ears to her. To listen, let alone to speak. But then, one day—

The soft touch of her fingers, gentle and kind. The spell, cold like an autumn breeze, singing through his blood. The glint of light and magic. 

A voice, calling him home.

_ Let me help. _

And Bren opens his eyes.

.

He watches numbly as Nott and Beauregard come trudging from the forest. He looks at them, surveys them: the streak of blood on Beauregard’s face, likely from the shrapnel explosion in the first attack; the dark stain poking through Nott’s shoulder, new or old? They are whole, he sees, whole and alive and grim-faced. 

He knows, at once. Astrid is not with them. Astrid has… she’s escaped. She’s gone.

There is a buzzing in his ears, a fog rising in the back of his mind. His hands are shaking. All his thoughts have gone quiet, a million things to plan and do and say crushed under a blinding sort of panic, a consuming sort of fear, a burning kind of anger. He breathes, and he breathes, and all he can taste is the smoke.

He thinks:  _ I don’t want to be here. _

They try and talk to him. Beauregard, fiercely; Nott, unapologetic but hesitant. Jester at his back and Caduceus and Fjord by his side. Caduceus is bleeding slightly from where Caleb has punched him in the face. Fjord is still cradling his side. Caleb should— he should apologize for that. Probably. Definitely. Soon.

He doesn’t. They reach for him, try to speak to him—but he has nothing, no words and nothing kind on his tongue, and so he curls his hands into fists to stop from shaking, and turns to walk away.

.

When the magic fades and his vision is clear, the woman smiles and sits back. Hers is the first face he truly sees, eleven years after everything— brown skin, black hair coiled close to her scalp, her beetle black eyes crinkled in a warm smile. She is out of place in this gray, lifeless room. Too bright for the bare walls, too soft for the cold stone. She brushes his hair from his face, and her hand is cool against his fevered skin.

“Hello, my friend,” she says to him. Common, a plain accent. “Are you feeling alright?”

Bren stares back. He doesn’t speak. His throat has closed up, silent horror. For the first time in what feels like forever, his mind is quiet, his thoughts blank and empty. The weight of memory looms behind him, but he doesn’t even notice it.

The woman is still smiling. Smiling bright, smiling firm. But Bren’s eyes are clear, now, and he can feel as her fingers seize and shake against his temple. He can see as her face twitches with the first beginnings of pain. 

“I said,” she repeats, beginning to stutter, “Are— are you feeling— okay?”

Bren— Bren can’t breathe. He thinks he might be sick. He is frozen here, frozen still, held by the weight of reality and the horror of what he is witnessing. Because he knows. He knows magic. He knows power. 

He knows a spell’s backlash when he sees it.

The woman starts to tremble. Her hands jolt up towards her head, as if to brace herself—but then she forces her fingers still and calm in her lap. Her smile never wavers. Even as the veins in one eye burst, even as her nails dig into her clenched hands. The blood beads around her eye like a tear, and the woman smiles, smiles, smiles.

“Good,” she says. Stuttering, shaking. Soft. As if he has answered. “That’s good. I’m so glad.”

Her voice, distant and raspy. The blood that drips from the corners of her eye, and trails heavy down her cheek. There is a weight growing behind him, memories gained and memories lost— a truth he’ll realize in full only later— but in this moment, the woman is all Bren can see. The image of her seared on the backs of his eyes. The smile, and the blood, and the unyielding strength.

She curls her fingers into her dress, and lifts her head. Her hands are shaking. Her breaths hitch like sobs. But she is still smiling, and her eyes are still bright. 

In a few minutes time, she will fall to raging. The false memories she unraveled will break her in kind, and the asylum healers will come and drag her away. Bren will never see her again. This is the first and only time he sees her. These are the last words she will ever say to him.

“I’m so glad,” the woman says, and her smile burns bright in his memory. “I’m so glad.”

.

They set up the cart and pack their things, silent, still. Push up their bags and start again on the road, racing away from their camp, from where Astrid found them. When Caleb is rested enough, he will draw his chalk through the dust and bring them elsewhere, but for now they are stuck here on the road. Moving forward in the silence.

They try to talk to him, of course. They have questions and bids for attention and even apologies, but he doesn’t yet have words and he doesn’t much care to answer anyway. Frumpkin is a heavy weight around his shoulders, but for once even he cannot calm the storm of Caleb’s thoughts, cannot ease the ache of his anger. 

When they finally roll to a stop, the early dusk bringing them to a halt, he slips from the cart and walks off, silver thread already in hand. He sets up the alarm spell with shaking hands, trying not to think. His throat is tight. His blood seethes. He doesn’t know if he’s angry or afraid or both, or—if this hatred, if he hates Astrid, if he wants to, if it matters. He finishes the spell and looks off into the horizon, and tries to breathe past the fog. 

Astrid knows where they are now. She knows their faces. He wants to be angry about that but he’s not. He should have thought of that. He should have— he’s put them all in danger, and he has never felt so tired. Maybe the trouble, he thinks, is that he’s not angry enough. 

He should have burned her faster, he thinks. But his hands were shaking, and Bren hesitated. Look at where that weakness has gotten him. If only he’d been angrier. If only he’d hated her more.

Caleb still doesn’t sit with the rest of the Nein. Can’t deal with the questions, or their eyes, or the gut-punch he’ll feel once he gets a proper look at Nott’s face. He sits off the side of the fire, back to a tree and eyes facing the darkness, his fingers curled into Frumpkin’s fur. His scars itch and his skin crawls, and he looks out into the darkening sky and tries to remind himself how to speak.

.

In the hours after the woman is dragged away, Bren lies still on the bed and shakes.

The clouds are gone, his memories unraveled, and the weight of what’s been pressed in his hands almost crushes him. His parents were never— Master Ikithon had—  _ why?  _ Why, for what reason, in what kind of world does killing make you strong, why did Bren ever believe it— why didn’t he suspect— and the memories, too, the real ones, they are brighter and stronger and eating him alive. 

For hours, he lies there, mute. Staring up at the ceiling, his mind racing, wrestling with a panic that swells and ebbs like the tide. The weight of all he’s done presses down on him, the truth of it unavoidable. He wishes he didn’t have to—he wishes he hadn’t woken up—why, why,  _ why  _ did she do that? Why did she clear the fog? He doesn’t want this. He doesn’t  _ want _ this. 

He doesn’t even know the woman, not really. So why— why did she do this to him? Is this punishment? He’s done a terrible, despicable thing, and he  _ knows that already _ , he does. What is the use of this? He already knows. He’s known all along. He’s done something terrible, and it can’t be undone. Even though it was based on a lie, he’d still wanted to do it. Bren still set the fire. It can’t be undone. He can’t ever take it back.

And then, like a catch in the back of his mind: a thought. A whisper of possibility. Clarity, and the start of an idea. In the hours after, Bren lies in the asylum bed and stares blank at the white walls, and thinks—

... _ Can’t I? _

And piece by piece, he pulls himself back together.

.

He hears Caduceus coming long before he sees him. The crackle of the leaves, the heavy thud of footsteps, a staff hitting the ground. Caleb stays where he is, and beyond a brief glance—the blood has been washed from Caduceus’s fur, his nose is newly healed,  _ good _ —he ignores the other, stays seated against the tree and stays stubbornly silent.

Caduceus, too, doesn’t seem inclined to speak. He walks over with his staff in one hand and two teacups balanced in the other, and settles beside Caleb with a long sigh and little else. Crosses his legs and arranges the cups. Sips at steaming tea, and looks out into the same patch of darkness Caleb has been staring at for the past hour. He says nothing at all. He is quiet. Just quiet.

Caleb closes his eyes, and exhales long and shaky.

When he opens his eyes again, it is to see Caduceus with his hand outstretched, the second cup cradled in his palm. A silent offer. “The Dereni family,” he names, and offers a placid smile.

Caleb is not in the mood for tea, and for Caduceus’s even less, but he remembers a hit to the face and blood in fur, and reaches for it anyway.

It is a mistake. Too late he smells the smoky flavor to it, and the heat of the ceramic makes his skin crawl. His nerves are alight. In the back of his mind, someone is screaming. He fumbles and the cup slips from his hand, tea spilling out in the dirt, the teacup rolling. 

Stupid! Stupid. He tucks his hands under his arms, the warmth itching at his skin, at his scars, and breathes through grit teeth. 

Caduceus says nothing. Just  _ hmms _ again, soft and understanding, and picks up the cup to brush off the dirt. He sets the empty teacup back down by his foot like no harm has been done, and stays silent throughout it all. 

Caleb looks away. Frumpkin crawls down from his shoulders and into his lap, and the night air blows blessedly cold against his bare neck. He stares off into the dark, and waits until he can ignore the smell of smoke, until the night air has chased away the last lingering reaches of creeping warmth. Curls his hands into his lap, into Frumpkin’s soft fur, and tests his tongue against his teeth.

He feels for the words, and this time, he finds them.

.

Two weeks later, he runs. He sets the fire where he thinks the woman is not. Kills the guard wearing the red uniform of the Vollstrecker, steals the coat and the necklace and the boots. By the time the asylum people deal with the fire and find the guard, he’ll be long gone.

He runs, and he runs, and he runs. He runs until he can run no further. He has not run in—time. A long time. His breaths wheeze. His chest feels tight. His ribs, his throat, his lungs: they are small, choked, aching. He passes out in the dirt in the middle of the woods, and it is only by a miracle that he is not found or eaten.

By morning he can breathe well enough to move. His legs ache too much to run again, so he walks instead. Walks, and walks, and walks. One hand in the guard’s coat pocket, his coat now, feeling the meager change there. Two gold, one silver, five copper.  _ What now,  _ he thinks to himself. _ What now, Bren, you fucking idiot? What are you going to do now? _

In the back of his mind, there is a whisper. The ghost of a hand on his cheek.  _ You’ll be alright, my friend. You’ll be alright. _

He keeps walking. Past the first two towns, past the second city, into the third village. Buys a new coat that isn’t that fucking red uniform, and some socks for his stolen shoes. Loses all the rest of his money to food. Puts his hands into empty pockets, and keeps on going.

.

Caleb says, “You shouldn’t have stopped me.”

Caduceus tilts his head, considering this. There is no surprise in his eyes. No judgment. He looks to Caleb and his smile is rueful. “Perhaps,” he replies, and sips at his cup. “We didn’t mean to take it that far, I think.”

Caleb is in no mood to discuss what they did or did not mean to do. He knows. “She is a terrible, cruel, violent person,” Caleb says instead, and he says it steady, like each word doesn’t cut at his heart. “She is—you shouldn’t have stopped me.” His fingers curl in the sleeves of his coat. “She knows you now. Your faces. Perhaps even our names. She can find us now. She already found us once.” 

This pit in his gut—is it fear? Guilt? He’s figured out by now that Eodwulf and Astrid had not expected to find him, but in his panic he let loose the fact he was running at all. They will look, now. Next time, when they find him, it will be on purpose. “She’ll be back.”

“Perhaps,” Caduceus says again, and sets down the cup in his lap. “But if so, then, we will be prepared. We will fight together instead of amongst ourselves. We will… we will plan. Today was a bad day, I think. We made too many choices too quickly.” He shrugs. “But for better or for worse, now we have time to think about things.”

Caleb stays quiet at this. He recognizes the wisdom—does not want it, but recognizes it. Curls his hands in his coat so he doesn’t dig at his arms or hurt Frumpkin accidentally, and thinks, ruefully, on how even now he can still act so much like a child.

But Caleb has not been a child in a long time. Neither has Astrid. Just because he does not want the wisdom—just because he never wanted any of this—doesn’t make it less true. (Doesn’t make it cut any less.)

Still, he is a coward, and he—he does not want to talk about this. Not now. Not ever, but especially not now. So he tugs at his coat sleeve and looks on into the dark and says, instead, apropos of nothing, “You—you remind me of someone. Someone I… knew. Of sorts.”

A pause. For a moment he thinks Caduceus will rebuff him, will drag the conversation back on track. But all Caduceus does is hum, soft and interested. 

“Oh? Who would this be?” 

He has to stop at that, just for a moment. He has to think about it. “No-one important,” Caleb says, finally. “Not really.”

It’s not cruel, these words: it just is. Even after all these years, he still doesn’t even know her name. And yet. “Just… someone I knew. Someone kind.” He manages, just barely, a sort-of smile—a little too much teeth, a little too much grimace, but a smile nonetheless. “Not, hah, not everyone from my past is going to show up to kill me, you know.”

He means it as a joke, almost, or possibly a barb—against who, who the hell knows, because Caleb currently is still trying to figure that out himself—but Caduceus turns and smiles at him, bright and pleased, and the sharper edge to Caleb’s smile falters. 

“That so?” Caduceus says, and his expression is bright and honest. “That’s wonderful. I’m honored. Wish I could meet ‘em, someday.”

Had this been said by anyone else, it would be a dig, perhaps, a sly snap. A testing of whether this possibly kind-person exists or not. But when Caduceus speaks, it is with intent, with focus, with off-hand hope. He means it. And there is a comfort in that, some strange, secret sort of relief, that makes Caleb sigh long and quiet and loosen the white-knuckled grip on his coat.

“Ah,” he says, at last, in reply. “You know, my friend—I wish you could meet her too.”

.

He hears the date for the first time two weeks after his escape. Catches it off-hand by a city crier, and the sheer number makes him stagger. He has to lean against a wall to keep from falling over, and his chest feels breathless, hollowed. The numbers run wild through his head. One, two, three, four… eleven years. Eleven years. It has been—

Bren has known, understood, that it has been a long time. He’s grown up, and he is aware of that, cannot help but notice. He grew up trapped in a small room with limited opportunity for motion and movement, and the fact he can move as well as he does, the fact he hasn’t wasted away, is due only to magic. So—he’s guessed. He knows. His body doesn’t fit quite right yet, too tall, too long, too… tired, old, worn. It doesn’t fit, and now he finally has a number for it, a reason. Eleven years. They locked him away a few months after his seventeenth birthday, and now... 

He is twenty-eight years old. 

Eleven years.

He thinks back on the asylum, and—he can’t remember much. Screaming, whispers, mocking words. Pain. Betrayal. Drowning. Astrid, Eodwulf—but no, no, surely not, he is being stupid. He doesn’t remember much. He can barely remember it at all. Eleven years, drowned away under a haze, under a fog. What  _ does _ he remember?

A hand on his cheek, a soft voice.  _ Don’t worry. You’ll be alright. Let me help.  _ Those same hands, cupping his face, the touch gentle—the clouds lifting. The woman, smiling down at him.  _ I’m so glad. _

Fire, and smoke.

He stops thinking about the asylum.

.

Caduceus stays with him for a little while longer after that, before duties and dinner calls him away. He leaves slowly, reluctantly— claps Caleb on the shoulder, a firm touch, before he heads back to the others. The press of his hand lingers; Caleb rubs at his shoulder, and wonders if he should have said something more.

He stays sitting for a long time, still, after Caduceus has left. Stays staring at the shadows until the dusk drags on into darkness. He blinks and spots dance behind his eyes. The darkness wavers to his vision, and his own paranoia creates shapes in the shadows. 

He thinks about leaving. He thinks about packing his bags, about walking off, about running away—but that is no surprise, by now. Caleb has always been this way. Always a coward. Always looking behind him, just over his shoulder, mapping escape routes in his mind.

He thinks about it, but he doesn’t move. Caleb stays seated. He stays. 

He always does, in the end.

He can hear them behind him, the Mighty Nein, the crackle of their faint fire and the soft din of their voices. He closes his eyes and his eyes are hot, tight, sore and tired. Frumpkin drapes back around his shoulders like a noisy and grounding scarf. There’s an echo in the back of his mind, a soft voice urging him onward.

Caleb rubs at his face, and finally gets to his feet.

They go quiet when he sits back by them, settled between Jester and Caduceus. He still can’t look Nott in the eye. It is awkward, and the fire spits and crackles. Caleb curls his hands into his arms, into the scars, and stays right where he is, even as their eyes make his skin crawl.

Caduceus alone seems unreactive—just smiles at him, quietly pleased, and holds out a cup of tea.

Caleb looks at the cup, remembering heat and shaking hands, and hesitates. He considers refusing. Then he looks at Caduceus, and sees the look in his eye, and takes it anyway. 

To his surprise, the cup is cold. Cool in his hands, a gentle chill. There is no heat to it, no warmth to make his skin itch and his memories scream. He takes a sip, and the drink is sweet instead of smoky.

Caleb doesn’t smile. But a line in his shoulders relaxes, and he closes his eyes, this time in relief. The tea is cold in his hand. His friends are no longer so quiet, their conversation restarting, their questions held forcibly back. They must be so curious. They must want to know. And still—they do not ask.

And it is not—a solution, no, not by any means. But it is all right, too. For now, this is all right. They are waiting for him. They will wait. Astrid is gone, but they are still alive. They are still here. 

He drinks down the tea like Nott does her booze, and takes a deep breath. Turns, and meets Nott’s bright yellow eyes, luminescent in the dark. His friend, his dear friend. Her mouth is pinched and her shoulders are hunched, and she watches him carefully back.

“My friend,” Caleb says, and clears his throat of the roughness. Tries again. “My friend, may we— can we talk?”

  
  


.

  
  
  


.

  
  
  


.

  
  
  
  
  


_ “I’ve come to a conclusion, stranger. I think that you are real.” _

_ Her voice is soft; her words are low and hushed, said as a whisper. This moment is one of his better moments—he hears this one speak often, but rarely is in the state of mind to understand the words. In this hour, though, he closes his eyes and he listens, drowning out the roaring of fire in his ears with the raspy twang of her voice. _

_ “Yes,” she is saying, quiet, under her breath. He thinks it is nighttime, perhaps. It’s dark behind his eyelids, and the air is blessedly cool. “Yes, I… I think you are real. I think you are alive. I—I wasn’t sure, for a while there, you see, because I see many people like you. People screaming. People crying. People gone quiet inside. But they are not real anymore. And I, I— I can never help them.” _

_ He doesn’t answer. His eyes are closed, and his breaths are even. But he is listening, and he can hear the smile in her voice. The disbelief. The hope. _

_ “I can’t help them,” she says. “I could never help them. I am always… always, too late. But you. You are real, aren’t you? My friend?” _

_ The tap of her feet against stone. The brush of her hand against his head. It is a kind touch. Soft, taking nothing. Just something gentle, and maybe kind. _

_ “You are real,” she repeats, like a promise, “and I can help you. Haha! You haven’t made it easy, though. What awful magics have been cast on you— what terrible people you must have known. And you have been alone for so long it has festered. But that is okay. I can ease the ache of it. The madness, and the magic.”  _

_ There is a memory here, in-between the fog and the dreaming and the screaming. An empty room with bare walls and a cold window, moonlight like a lance against his aching eyes. But on this night, in the darkness, where the fire is only a faint burn in the back of his mind—there is something else, too.  _

_ A smile. A hand, cool on his wrist. And a voice, vaguely familiar after all these weeks of hearing her speak to him, warm with something he cannot name. _

_ “It will hurt me, I think,” she whispers to him then. “I think perhaps it will hurt me a lot. And I am sorry, in advance, if I cannot be there for you after. I’m sorry if that means I leave you alone, once it’s done. But don’t worry. You’ll be okay. My friend, you are strong. I can tell. Strong of heart, and that’s all that matters. You’ll be alright. No matter what, you’ll be alright.” _

_ And Bren is tired, Bren is lonely, Bren is eleven years wasted away in blank cell walls. But he is still here. And he still listens.  _

_ He could pull back, if he wanted to. Could hide himself away. Could even call forth one of the few spells he still remembers, still knows by heart. He could do so much, if he wanted to. He could push this woman and her strange rambling offer away.  _

_ And yet. _

_ “Let me help,” the woman says, and against all his better judgment, against every former teaching, against every instinct he has—  _

_ Bren does. _

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Caleb as a person avoids all his problems, and while as a person I understand completely, as a writer I want to pull my hair out. This chapter was more Caleb preparing for tough aftermath rather than him actually DEALING with aftermath, but, oh well. This too is all part of the process. (I'll get him next time, though.)
> 
> ((Astrid in comparison was really easy to write, if only because she always just... faces things head-on, even if she really doesn't want to. Made for less transition.))
> 
> Also, fun fact!! Astrid's backstory scenes were divided by timeline/different stages of her life, but Caleb's are more divided by the important people in his life-- Astrid, Eodwulf, and his parents last chapter, and the woman from the asylum in this one. I wish I could say I did that intentionally, but the story has just somehow worked out like that. I only noticed it myself like, yesterday.
> 
> If you have any questions or just want to talk, [my tumblr](http://izaswritings.tumblr.com) is always open!!
> 
> Any thoughts?


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Caleb and Nott, throughout it all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Life and school kind of punched me in the face this past week, so... that's why this chapter took a little longer in getting out, haha. On the bright side, I'm pretty much almost at the half-way point of Critical Role? Only 40 more episodes to go, baby!!
> 
> Also: thank you all SO MUCH for every wonderful comment!! It really brightens my day! I'll try to respond as soon as I can, but until then, know that I read and appreciate each and every one! ❤️❤️❤️
> 
> **Warnings:** Caleb's usual brand of self-loathing, some self-harm (the arm scratching), discussions of homelessness, Trent Ikthon's awful worldview, and the effects of that worldview on his students. If there's anything I forgot to mention, let me know and I'll add it on here!

Here is the thing: Caleb is not, actually, ready to talk. He is rarely ready to talk, and now is no exception: just the thought makes him feel tired, makes him heavy, makes him want to grimace. At times like this he gives in, usually, throws Frumpkin in the direction of whatever poor sod in this group needs comfort, or casts Haste on Jester so her antics can distract the others from questioning him, or takes a walk, or— other things, anything, instead of talking. He already knows how this is going to go, how conversations like this turn out. Each word forced and stilted, his throat strangled closed and his chest tight, like someone’s got a hand to his sternum and is pressing, pressing, pressing him down to the earth. Even now, breathing takes effort. Speaking more so.

So Caleb is not ready to talk, actually, but he’s run the calculations, he’s done the math, and he knows that doesn’t matter. Not here, not for this. Because: this is Nott. Nott, his best friend, Nott, who has become— who is— the most important, perhaps, the most important and most wonderful person he’s ever known and ever will; Nott the Brave, and he will always talk to her, especially in times like this. Always, always, because the only thing worse than speaking is not knowing where he stands with her.

And so, Caleb gathers his breath and links his fingers, and looks at her from across the fire and asks. “May we talk, my friend?” It takes effort to meet her eyes, but he manages. 

He is not afraid, but he still slumps in quiet relief when Nott nods and leaps to her feet, no hesitation to be seen. “Of course, Caleb!” There is no anger in her eyes, or in her voice. A similar relief, maybe, like she’s been waiting for him to ask. She slips to his side and in his shadow like she’s done a million times before, and then stops and turns to cast a vicious side-eye at the others, as if just daring them to eavesdrop. She makes a shooing motion with her hand. Despite himself, his lips twitch. 

“Goddamn, Nott, don’t have to murder us with your eyeballs, sheesh,” says Beauregard, at the glare. “Go get more firewood or something! Leave the hearing zone!”

For a moment, things feel— almost the same. He and Nott exchange a glance. Nott rolls her eyes; Caleb presses his lips in a deep frown to keep from laughing. A moment of shared, fond irritation.

“A group of assholes,” Caleb remarks, dry but not unkindly, and Beauregard curses at him, and this time when he turns his back to the fire it does not feel like running away.

He walks into the trees, still in range of the silver thread of his alarm spell. Kneels down, and casts his hands through the dirt, for the stray twigs and dry grasses. Senses rather than sees Nott crouch by his side. Together, in the shadow of the trees, in the silence. 

There are things to say, but he doesn’t yet know how to say them, or where to even start. He picks up a branch and weighs it in his hand. Rough, thin, fragile. It will burn nicely, he thinks, dark humor, and sets it off to a pile on the side.

At his back: the firelight, the Mighty Nein, his friends and his family, their soft voices turned to a gentle buzz by the distance, lilting in the summer night air. By his side: Nott, as quiet as he, her eyes on the ground and her fingers playing with a stray brass button, flipping the smooth metal through deft hands.

The silence stretches, settles, shifts. He stands, and sets the found firewood off the side. Nott stands too, and tilts back her head to look at him. Her yellow eyes bright and watchful. Her mouth pursed. She shuffles in place, heel kicking at the grass, her eyes turning down, and says, at last, “Are you upset with me?”

.

The years after he escapes from the asylum pass by in a blur, time stolen by hunger and exhaustion and a fear that hounds his heels everywhere he goes. The dirt on his face is half disguise and half something he can no longer help. The coin he makes is few and far between, tricked and begged for from unwilling hands.

The first year is the hardest. The first year is the worst, because he is still weak and still new to being old, and the lingering echoes of his pride burns sour with every sneer, every time someone refuses to meet his eyes, as if he is not worth looking at it. It makes the echoes of Bren that still seethe spark in his gut, anger a slow burn in his belly. _ I was going to be something, once. I was going to be great. _ The whispers of pride, of possibility. _ I was going to be better than you. _But those are the echoes of a boy who burned his home down and thought it righteous, and even if Bren wasn’t entirely awake at the time, he has still grown up in these past eleven years. He knows better. There is no use in wounded pride. There is no use in that cruel boy’s scornful ego.

He learns quickly to live with the dirt on his face. Learns, eventually, to need it. The comfort of anonymity—the security of being no one—the safety of having nothing. He steals back spells from bookstores and smut shops, plans the road ahead and counts out each hour of the day as it passes. Time passes, and he finds himself again— adjusts, bit by bit and little by little, to his new reality. 

He learns, too, the changes within himself. The shake in his hands and the echoes in his head. The blankness that rises up if he watches things fall to fire. But there are other things, too— other changes to deal with. 

He stutters, now, when he talks. This is a new development, but not exactly a surprising one. It’s been… a long time. So long. Since he’s talked to people; since people have talked to him. He can’t remember now, exactly, what he’s supposed to say to charm people, what they like to hear. Lessons in manipulation buried beneath years of isolation. It’s almost funny. Ironic, in an annoying way.

He deals with it. He stutters through questions and thanks, and fights through the times when his chest seizes and his breath goes short. He never uses his name. Sleeps with his back to the wall, in the gutters, in the alleys; spends his days reminding himself of what he needs to do, and why. In the nights he closes his eyes, and pretends he cannot still hear the echoes that haunt his dreams—the crackle of fire, and smoke, and screaming; the touch of a hand on his cheek and the way the woman smiled even as she shook. _ Let me help. _In the days he wanders, and tries not to think about what he left behind him. Tries, futilely, not to wonder. 

_ Astrid, _ he thinks sometimes. _ Eodwulf. _What has happened to you? Where are you now? Do you remember me, still? Do you want to? 

...Are you happy?

The first year is the hardest. The rest aren’t easier, perhaps, but by those years he has gotten used to it. Used to the hunger, the loneliness, the hiding. The echoes in his head and the fear that haunts his heels. If the first year is the hardest, it is because he keeps forgetting that he’s alone.

But he survives, regardless. And sooner or later, he moves on.

.

“No,” Caleb says, at once, almost without thinking. He looks at Nott, and she meets his gaze, and he realizes suddenly that he isn’t sure. He frowns. Looks away, at the ground, and slowly steps back, sitting down on a log to look her in the eye without being demeaning. He tangles his fingers and thinks. He can feel— the press of the bark against his legs, the cold air, the icy breeze that blows chill through his coat. He rubs at his face and feels the start of stubble. He forgot to shave this morning …He had no time, this morning.

“Caleb?”

He realizes he hasn’t said anything in a while, and shakes his head. “Ah—sorry. No, I am not… that is—I do not think—_ angry, _I am not angry, but upset, yes, I am…” He is rambling now, he realizes, and cuts himself off with a scowl. “I—I do not know what I am. But it is not—at you, no, not really.”

“Okay.”

“Yes.”

“Yes,” Nott parrots back, in Zemnian. She says it more like “_ yah” _then the “ja” sound it should be, but the little mimicry eases the tension somewhat. His lips twitch again. She sits next to him on the log, and looks out into the distance.

Then, after a pause: “Good,” in Common this time, and—“I’m not sorry.”

He’d suspected as much. Caleb works his jaw, considering; he doesn’t want to snap at her, doesn’t want to sound angry. He’s not angry, he’s decided. He doesn't know what this is, but anger isn’t it. He understands why they did it, even if he hates it, and he can see the logic in it. He just—he just doesn’t like it. 

“I thought not,” he says, finally. Keeps his voice even and his tone soft, though it takes more effort than it should. “And I—I, I am… I can see why—that is, I understand that— ” He isn’t making _ sense, _ goddamnit, and he cuts himself off again, gritting his teeth. He misses the eloquence of Zemnian like an ache. “It… changes little of the facts, though. My friend… I understand why you might have, ah, thought it necessary, but Astrid, she is—”

“She’s important to you,” says Nott, simply. 

He almost laughs, and chokes it back. This isn’t funny. “That is… Yes, maybe, but—that was a long time ago, yes? A long, long time ago, and she is…she is not. That person. Anymore.” His fists are clenched, he realizes. His jaw aches. “You—_ we, _we should not have let her go.” He stares down at his hands, and his fingers are white, tense from the strain. “We should not have let her go.”

He’s not angry. He doesn’t think he could ever be angry at Nott, not in that way. And even if he could— not about this. Never about this. His past, his mistakes, his friends. Bren’s shadow, finally catching up to him. No, no… he could never be angry. 

But even if he is not angry, that doesn’t stop the shake in his fingers, the tremor in his lungs. The quick breath and the rapid heartbeat. The fever chill down his neck, the itch under his skin, and the horrible pit in his gut, the memory of this morning— Nott and Beauregard, vanished with Astrid. 

Nott and Beauregard, alone with a monster, and in that moment he had never felt more afraid.

He faces Nott fully, now, and takes her one hand in both of his. “Nott,” he says, firmly. “I understand— I know why— but listen to me, my friend, you need to listen. Don’t do that again. I need… I need us to be on the same page, I need you to understand, these people are— they are the worst of the worst, they are cruel, you cannot trust them to leave. We cannot give them that opening.” He hesitates, and squeezes her hand, careful to not make it too tight. “Please,” he says, quiet. “We cannot afford to be caught off-guard again.” 

“Can’t let them catch us,” Nott says, finally. “Can’t let them find us.”

“Yes.” He exhales heavily, his breath held too long. “Yes, yes. Exactly.”

Nott is quiet. She tilts her head to the side, distant in thought. Her mouth working on the words. At their back, the campfire crackles, and he hears Jester laugh, weak but real.

“Us,” Nott repeats. Her eyes are on the campfire, and then she turns and looks at him. Her chin tilted up; her shoulders straight. Unwavering, unyielding, still as stone and just as certain. “Us, Caleb, or just you?”

.

He summons Frumpkin for the first time two years after escaping, the materials nicked from a fancy shop, stolen by the skin of his teeth. He gets his hands on the incense and herbs, and shakes for a whole two hours after, trying not to be sick. The next day he hunches in an alley corner and lights a spark, and an hour later curls his fingers into soft orange fur.

It is weakness that drives the spell. Weakness and need, and a petty sort of rebellion. Ikithon had not liked the Find Familiar spell. He had thought it juvenile, and thought it foolish. Bren summons the fey cat with a shaky smile on his face, and thinks perhaps Master Ikithon just didn’t like the idea of a creature he couldn’t control.

But whatever drove him to summon the fey, Bren cannot bring himself to regret it. From then on, Frumpkin is a warm and welcome companion. Clever, and quick, and helpful. And it _ works. _ For the next three years, Bren trips and stumbles and fumbles his way through surviving, clawing inch by fucking inch closer to where he needs to go. And it is still hard— still awful, still exhausting, still painful— but it is better, somehow, with Frumpkin by his side and in his thoughts. 

But though Frumpkin is useful, even he can only do so much. One day, five years after escaping, Bren gets desperate. One day, he gets cocky. And the guards catch him. This time, he cannot outrun them. They wrench back his hands and take his books and throw him face-down in a cell that smells like decay and rotting waste. They leave him there to serve his time. They leave him there for nine days.

And he is just starting to panic, he is just starting to think he won’t be getting out of this after all—and then.

Then, on the ninth day, they throw someone else in there with him.

He doesn’t really notice her, the first day. Asks if she’s all right, what is her name, more out of politeness than real desire to know. (His mother, in the back of his mind, her voice fond: _ manners, Bren. _ ) That this newcomer is a goblin is the only thing of immediate interest— he knows as soon as he looks at her, no matter how she tries to hide her face. He sees her yellow eyes and needle-like teeth and the rich green skin, and it’s like a light. _ Goblin. _ The little, hateful whisper in the back of his mind that sometimes sounds like Trent and sometimes just sounds like Bren whispers: _ monster, thing, fit for death and little more. _All of his lessons involving goblins have been how to kill them. 

The thoughts are there, but that doesn’t mean he wants them. He remembers what it was like to think that way, to believe it— remembers the way that meaningless hatred festered, rotting in his heart. If he’s learned nothing else, it’s this. What right has he to judge? He’s likely more a monster than this goblin girl could ever be. (His mother’s voice, again: _ be kind, Bren, be good, if nothing else.) _

He closes his eyes and turns away, and gives no voice to the thoughts that aren’t quite his own. By the second day, those ugly thoughts are quieter. By the third, they are gone— swept away by plans and schemes, escape incoming, a plot involving his magic and this goblin’s clever, nimble fingers.

The escape goes swiftly, cleanly, without a hitch. She picks the solid prison locks with a small stick of wire, and he sets the cell on fire and pretends to burn. It is— terrifying, mostly, but also thrilling. A strange sort of camaraderie. The lock falls open and the flames begin to spark, and the goblin girl looks over to him and smiles. For a brief second, he forgets himself, and almost smiles back.

It is a small, useless interaction. At the time, in the moment, he barely thinks anything of it. But when the guards come running, and Bren and Nott slip free through the doors— strangely, instead of fear, all he can feel is warm. 

.

He is thrown, for a second. Tongue-tied once again. “I—what do you_ — _”

“You were angry,” Nott says, and she is—she is not accusing. She is not upset with him. She speaks sure and certain, unwavering and firm. Waiting, patiently, for any answer he has to give. “You tried to kill her, I think, and that’s— I don’t think you _ wanted _ her to die, but, you didn’t want her there, right? You didn’t want her after us. And now she’s gone.” 

He is frozen still, caught in time. Nott sucks on her lip, and very carefully squeezes his hand. “I’m just—I’m just confused, I think? Because—um, from what you’ve said, and other things, I always figured Astrid was really important to you. I always thought you cared about her. And I think you still do.” He cannot quite stop the flinch, and Nott nods slowly, sadly. “Yes,” she says. “Yes, I thought so. And— and you’re right, Caleb, we probably shouldn’t have let her go, and I understand that now, a little better. So I guess— I’m just wondering— what next?” 

He doesn’t move. There is— there is an itch, now, an awful restless thing, rising up in his throat and burrowing beneath his skin. He feels very cold. He pulls away from Nott’s grasp, and curls his fingers in his sleeves, instead. Trying to stay rooted. Trying to stay here. Trying not to walk away.

“Are you going after her?” Nott asks. “Are you going to chase her down? Or— you’re safe, Caleb, with that necklace, but she knows us now. She knows our names. She knows our faces. Even if she can’t find you, she can find us. So.”

He sees her hesitate. He sees her pause. And he sees, too— the moment Nott decides it, the moment her jaw firms and her eyes lock on his.

“Caleb,” Nott says, hushed and sad— “Caleb, are we running?”

.

Their deal in the prison is all business, and little else—her lock-picking, his magic, their skills combined to set them free. This, too, is the only reason he doesn’t run that first night, leave her behind as he has done so many other strangers: he is tired, and sleeping with a goblin on watch is minuscule better odds than sleeping without any watch at all. It is just practical. It is just business. 

And—and the next day, too, when she is still there… it makes sense, then, to stay with this prison-break buddy a little longer. And, well, she is clever, and her fingers are quick, and—and she is quite funny, actually, and so very smart, and every time he does any magic she watches with keen eyes and asks _ questions, _and he is not very good at explaining but the fact someone is asking, and he can answer—

But it is only practicality, Bren tells himself, one month after. Only sense. Better for his goals, in the long run, to have someone watching his back. 

(He tries not to think about how he already trusts her to do so.)

Her name is Nott. _ Nott, _ she said roughly, when he’d asked in the prison, and _ Nott the Brave, _ a little softer, three days after they’d escaped and neither of them had run off just yet. _ Nott the Brave, _and it—it suits her, he thinks, sometimes, watching her play their cons or slip gold from unsuspecting pockets. It suits her, he thinks, because she is so very brave. Brave in ways that makes even Bren’s head spin. He shakes all the time, some days, when stealing or speaking or even just thinking of either—and she shakes too, but that’s never stopped her. There’s strength, in that. There’s bravery, in that.

He gets used to walking by her side. Learns to respond when she calls him _ Caleb. _ Gets used to the gradual mothering, the gifts of food and trinkets she leaves in his pockets. Sometimes, he thumbs through his books and looks at the spells, and thinks: _ ah, I could teach her that one— _

Some nights, most nights— when he sets up the alarm spell, he forgets to exclude her.

.

He stares at her. He doesn’t answer. He tries to speak, and finds himself wordless; he rubs his hand over his mouth, covers his face, briefly. The press of his palms against the hollows of his eyes; the pale stab of his fingernails, digging into his cheek. That restless buzz in the back of his mind, but no— he won’t walk off, he won’t turn away, he will not shut her out. She is right to ask. She is right to wonder. Had he not just been thinking the same thing, barely an hour before?

After a moment, Nott takes a breath. “I’m sorry,” she says. “If we hadn’t let Astrid go, this wouldn’t be… but I didn’t want you to kill her. I didn’t want her death to hurt you. But, um, this is where it is, now? Where we are? And I— I just want to know, is all.”

Her voice is softer, but still—there is no give to her, and he recognizes this. This way about her, the way her gaze stays steady, her words kind but unyielding. It’s the way she gets when she’s focused, when she’s sure; the way she was after Molly died, _ I want to hear you say it _, almost like a challenge. 

He hadn’t had anything to say, then, and he doesn’t have anything now, either. He can’t. There is a whisper, here; an underlying thread— what Nott says, and what she actually means. _ Are we running, _ meaning, _ do you trust us enough to stay. _

(He does trust them, is the thing. Knows they will fight with him, knows they won’t leave him behind. Thinks it stupid, thinks it foolish, thinks he doesn’t deserve it— knows, still, that they will. The real question is whether he trusts them to survive it, and of that, he’s never been sure. He cannot afford to be.)

And maybe Nott understands that. Maybe she can read the answer on his face, because she nods to herself and her head dips, just slightly. “...Sorry. You don’t have to answer. It’s just...” 

His own voice sounds dull to his ears, the echo resounding. “You want to hear me say it.”

Her eyes lift and search his face. Her lips purse. “I just want to know,” Nott says, finally, “what _ you _ want.”

He wants to get out of here, he wants to move, he wants to be a million goddamn miles away. He wants to scream at the sky until he feels less like he’s about to shake right out of his skin. He wants to _ run, _ he wants to shout _ why are we just sitting here, why are we just resting, _he wants— 

Restless, restless. It itches under his skin. He digs his nails into the soft skin of his inner arm, and misses the bandages with a sudden ache. He wants to sleep. He wants, for once, to stop thinking.

“I don’t know,” he says, at last, but it doesn’t feel like enough. 

.

He realizes it in bits, in pieces, moment by moment. She steals him a book. She takes the magic he teaches her and applies it in ways he’d never thought of. She makes stupid puns. She comes up with clever little cons, and is a terrible actor, and has a good eye for possibility—

She is _ good _ . Kind in a way he cannot put into words. Soft on children and vicious when it comes to attack. Considers the word _ family _with the same weight and value that he does, as something precious, as something important. She knows full well how weak he is, and still somehow thinks the world of him, even so. 

It is little things. The thought that, perhaps, he wishes he had met her sooner, because he would have liked to have known her all his life. The comfort of waking, and finding her there. The endearing little ticks—her collection of stolen items, and the story behind each one, and the way her ears flick when she’s excited, and her fondness for rats, and her smile, even, once he gets used to the teeth—

Is is this: After he shows her the alarm spell, and includes her in it, he wakes up sometimes to find her at his side or by his feet. It is practicality, and it is warmth— but it is this, too: he finds it easier, now, to sleep when she is there, and there is a comfort in the weight of her body by his side.

It is this: He screws up. The con fails, he loses the words, he shuts down in the middle of the street, and Nott doesn't leave him behind. She grabs his hand and runs for it, dragging him behind her, and when they’re far enough away and gasping for breath, she turns and asks him if he’s all right, if he’s okay, she can go back and shoot the shopkeeper if he wants her to! And he wants to laugh, then, even as he apologizes.

It is this: One day, Nott steals him a book. An old, tattered thing— so worn that it feels fit to crumple under his hands, with a soft leather cover inscribed in a language he doesn’t know and can’t speak. “Picked it up off the shopkeeper,” says Nott, and she looks embarrassed, maybe, behind the porcelain face and the low hood. And Bren is speechless. Bren is quiet. Because he had not asked for this. He had not pointed it out. He holds the book in his hands and realizes: she saw this, and thought of him. And there is something in that, something about that, that floors him. That scatters his thoughts and leaves him numb and tongue-tied from the weight of it.

It’s not a welcome thing, not a needed thing, not necessary. When he understands what he’s done to himself he’s disgusted once again. Pathetic, to need this. Horrible, to want to stay. And here, for once, he thought he had conviction.

Nott is a liability. Because she is clever, and funny, and kind, and smart, and wonderful, and—and she does so much for him, she fights with him and helps him and does what he asks, ever aware of his damning weakness but never, ever shaming of it— and if she was just a tool that would be fine but she is _ not, _she’s Nott, she is his friend and he doesn’t want to lose her.

She is a liability because he is not strong enough to watch her die, and if he were smart then he would leave now, he would cut this thread before it strangles him.

And he thinks about it. And he wants to. And he tells himself too. And he decides: yes, he is going to leave. 

And yet. When the sun rises, and the new day starts— despite it all, Caleb Widogast is still here, watching the sky and waiting for her to wake. 

.

“That’s okay,” Nott says, after a pause. Her voice is very quiet; the fierceness has drained from her, that stubborn will easing away. “I mean, that’s fair.” He looks away, unable to meet her eyes, not really wanting to, and can sense more than see her slump. “Just— are, are you? Running?”

Not a dare, this time. Not a challenge. Just an honest question, and underneath it all, a whisper of fear. Once, in a situation where he chose to run, Caleb would have expected Nott to be there. Without question, he would have imagined her at his side. Now he isn’t so sure.

But it goes both ways, in the end. Because he doesn’t know if Nott will run with him, but neither is he certain that he can leave these people behind.

“No,” Caleb says. His voice is hoarse. “I do not think so. And even if… if I do, I would not—” He clears his throat. “I do not think I could leave without saying something, anyway.” The group, maybe. It would cut at something deep inside, but he could do it, if he felt he had to. But Nott?

No, he thinks. Even in a world where he could leave Nott behind, he couldn’t leave without saying goodbye.

Nott ducks her head. Her hair hangs low over her face. “Okay,” she says. “Good, I guess.” She slips off the log, and looks back to the fire— and then turns to him, a wordless question.

He tries for a smile, hoping to ease the worry on her face. “Go on,” he says, quietly. “I will come back in a moment. I just need—” He can’t remember the word, can’t find it, and waves his hand through the air instead.

Nott bites her lip. “Right,” she says. Her eyes dart across his face, and then, after a deep breath, she turns and heads back to the fire. Back to the others.

He looks away. The shadow of the light flickers in the corners of his eyes; he can feel the weight of their attention press down on his shoulders. Beauregard’s watchful gaze. Nott’s quick glances. The others too, looking, checking, making sure, as if afraid he will vanish should they look away.

He stares off into the shadows of the forest, the darkness beyond the silver thread. The sky pitch dark with heavy clouds, the stars and moons blotted out. _ Astrid, _ he thinks. _ Eodwulf. _ Where are you now? Did it hurt you, to see me? Did you think of me at all? 

_ Do you think of me now? _

The restless itch beneath his skin. The fear like cobwebs in the back of his throat. The tap of his foot against the ground, years upon years of lessons, of survival instinct, whispering in the back of his mind. Time to run.

(A memory, too, of another time. A stranger, her hands cupping his face. _ Let me help. _ The things she must have lost, helping him. The pain she must have felt. And yet— this he has never forgotten: despite it all, despite everything, she smiled.

_ I’m so glad. _)

He stands. He unwinds his fingers from his arm, lets loose his held breath. Stand still and tall underneath the shadow of the night, remembering Astrid, remembering possibility, remembering loneliness, remembering fear, the years he spent safe and the years he spent alone— 

— and finally turns away, back to the fire, and the people he has come to call his own.

.

.

.

_ There is no great revelation, no startling understanding, no shocking confrontation to clue him in. Nott is not in danger, and neither is he. It is a good day. A good day, a simple day. Simple, and boring, and warm. At dusk he lays down his coat for a blanket on the cold forest floor, and sets up the alarm spell around them. It never occurs to him to shut her out. _

_ He takes the first watch and Nott sleeps curled small against his side. She sleeps very quiet—the only sound is the slightest of whistles as she breathes, soft breaths through needle-like teeth. A soft, rasping sound. After all these weeks, all these months, it is a sound he has come to find comfort in. _

_ There is no great revelation. There is just this: Bren, sometimes Caleb, sometimes just himself, sitting up in the darkness and watching his friend sleep—and realizing, all at once, that he cannot bear to leave her behind. _

_ There is no great realization. His chest doesn’t seize. His blood does not run cold. It is a quiet knowing, and it is quiet, too—the things he considers in that moment. He has gotten attached. He has—he does not want to travel without her, does not want to imagine it, and that more than anything else is a sign that he should leave her behind. _

_ He thinks about it. He does. Every survival instinct he’s ever had is screaming in his mind like a warning. Frumpkin is coiled around his neck, utterly silent, tail lashing: waiting, waiting, waiting. The world whispers around him: the wind through the trees, the rustle of leaves, the warmer night breeze of Empire summer. The whistle of Nott’s breath through her teeth. _

_ He waits, and the hours pass him by. He does not wake Nott up for her watch. He does not move. In the back of his mind, he thinks: Go, you idiot, you fucking fool—you have to leave now, or it’s going to be too late. _

_ He doesn’t move. He doesn’t leave. He stays, and watches the sunrise with his heart in his throat. _

_ Nott wakes with the morning. Shifts, grumbles, and kicks at him accidentally as she stretches. Shoots bolt upright when she sees the light, and says loudly, scolding, “Caleb! Oh, no, did you let me sleep the whole night through?” _

_ Caleb, Bren thinks. Caleb Widogast. A name he created on a whim for a prisoner he thought he’d leave behind by the morning. A name he has carried for three months, now, and—well. He supposes he’ll have to get used to it. _

_ He supposes he already has. _

_ “It’s no trouble, my friend. Do not worry. You deserved it.” _

_ He thinks: She deserves so much better. _

_ But she has found him, instead, and he has found her—and it is not perfect, perhaps, not what he wanted and not what he expected, but it is his, still, all the same. She is his friend, and he is hers. And there is something about this that bids him to stay, despite it all. Foolishness, maybe. Sentimentality, perhaps. _

_ Bravery, he thinks. _

_ “Come,” Caleb says, “my friend, if you are awake, let us get going—” _

_ And when he leaves, that morning, it is with Nott by his side. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My favorite thing about Caleb is that he so very obviously wishes he didn't care about his friends, but he DOES. He loves them so much. He's a lovesick fool. It's _delightful._
> 
> This chapter gave me quite a bit of trouble, though, all said and done. This conversation went very differently in my notes, and I actually ended up rewriting it twice. Nott and Caleb are wonderful, and I love them, but GOD they can be confusing together. (Still, in the end, I'm quite happy with how it turned out!) 
> 
> I really felt this conversation had to happen, in its own way-- Caleb's just had his past thrust right in his face, and all the secrecy he's depended on to keep him safe from Ikithon has just been blown sky-high. Plus, the group was involved in letting Astrid go free. It made sense to me that Nott would ask this question--and that Caleb would stumble on the answer. He's a coward at heart, and I wanted to give him the chance to be brave. Deliberately, this time. Staying because he chooses to, not because he can't bring himself to run away. And who better to confront him on that than Nott, who struggles with fear each day? 
> 
> Anyway, that's my reasoning.
> 
> One last chapter left, y'all. Time for the rest of the Nein to make their entrance! (And then maybe an Eodwulf side-story, idk. Or just an Eodwulf thing in general. I feel bad for side-lining him...)
> 
> If you have any questions or just want to talk, [my tumblr](http://izaswritings.tumblr.com) is always open!!
> 
> Any thoughts?


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Caleb finally tries out this whole "truth" thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HUZZAH. It is done! I'm actually really happy with this final chapter, to be honest, and I hope you guys will too! Thank you all so much for your comments, kudos, readership... I may not have time yet to respond, but those things really brightened up my whole day. ✨
> 
> (Also, as a note-- timeline-wise this story takes place "in the summer," ie, some nebulous place in the future of the current episodes. So certain details, like Yasha, Fjord's... everything, etc, are left vague. I was trying to make this as timeline-neutral as possible, so please know these things are left iffy on purpose.)
> 
> **Warnings:** Some instances of self-harm on Caleb's end (clawing at his arms, the usual). If there's anything you feel I missed, however, please let me know and I'll add it on here!

Caleb returns to the fire.

He slips back to their campsite, their circle, with barely a sound. Quiet as perhaps even Nott as he sits back beside them, but the others still go silent when he does. A break in the conversation and a moment of pause— and he sees their shoulders relax, their eyes cast down and their breaths ease into soft sighs, and he knows they were not sure if he would come back. 

Caleb does not blame them, though the sight prickles strange at his chest. It’s— understandable. Expected, even. Hasn’t he told them, over and over, that he couldn’t stay if he wasn’t secret? Hasn’t he run, again and again, from any echoes of the past? They don’t know everything, but they know enough. They know his name, now. They know he left people behind. They know that this morning, those people found him again— saw him, knew him, and aimed to kill.

So: Caleb does not blame the group for their relief at his return. Once, he would have run. Once, he would have left them. He still could, but—

(Nott, so clever, so good, so  _ wonderful;  _ Beauregard, who is rough around the edges and occasionally annoying but still something of like— perhaps maybe— family? And the others: Caduceus, curious and wise and always willing to listen; Jester, who somehow manages to make even  _ him _ laugh at her shenanigans, when he had not thought himself capable of it; Fjord, as much of a mess as the rest of them but always willing to be the talker, to step up when no one else wants to— Nott, again; Nott, always.)

Well.

He has chosen to stay, regardless, and as Caleb settles by the fire, he cannot bring himself to regret that. For better or for worse, he cares about them. This he cannot deny. For all of their difficult questions and uncertain faces, for all that he fears the conversation to come, this is something that can no longer be avoided.

And yet—even so. They shift, and watch him. Nott reaches out and squeezes his hand. Fjord makes a face at the fire. Caduceus watches all of them, and says nothing. Jester fidgets. Beauregard taps her fingers, and her stare bores into his back.

Caleb watches them back, their faces shadowed by firelight, and is reminded suddenly of Astrid— older, colder, her eyes wide and her mouth twisted in a snarl. The disbelief, there. The brief flash of joy, becoming cold, becoming cruel. The way she looked at him, then, as if he was a stranger, and the worst part is, when he’d held up his hand and called the fire to it, in that light he hadn’t recognized her at all.

(He remembers: the house,  _ his _ house, is burning. He is screaming. They pin him to the ground as he struggles, and Eodwulf is blank, his eyes disappointed, pitying and empathetic and  _ cold,  _ and Astrid presses him ruthlessly to the ground and says  _ Bren, get a hold of yourself— ) _

“— Caleb?”

He blinks. He breathes. He looks up. Jester is biting her lip. Fjord is frowning. Caduceus has a hand outstretched, once mild expression now furrowed into worry. Nott’s claws are digging into his skin.

He blinks at them, rapid, and shakes his head, pulls away. Swallows down the cottonmouth, and grits his teeth against the taste of smoke, the gritty smear of ash on his tongue. “I am fine,” he says. He wants it to be comforting. He sounds cold, empty, instead. 

Nott squeezes his hand, and after a moment he remembers himself enough to squeeze her hand back. Beauregard is staring at him. He meets her eyes for only a moment, and then drops his gaze to the fire once again.

“It’s been a long day,” Beauregard says, at last, in the quiet. Her voice is too loud, and he almost winces; she clears her throat awkwardly, and coughs into her sleeve. “I mean— let’s be honest, it was a fucking shitstain of a day, yeah? So… let’s wait. Just for a bit. Yeah?”

Another pause. She looks over them, casing their reactions. Caleb looks away. He doesn’t answer.

“...Beau. Do you know?” Fjord. Talking quiet, low. Not accusing, just… curious, maybe, and with an echo of understanding. 

Beauregard works her jaw, and looks again at Caleb. He doesn’t meet her gaze. Her sees her teeth grit. 

“...Yeah.”

“Nott?”

“ _ Maybe. _ Does it matter, cowboy man?”

There is a pause, and though he is not looking, Caleb can imagine what Fjord is doing—chewing on his lip, mulling it over, gathering his thoughts with slow deliberation. “Are you sure it can wait? We won’t be in danger?”

Another pause. Caleb looks up. Beauregard is staring at him, and he meets her eyes and says nothing.

“It can wait,” Beauregard confirms, quiet. Her gaze is steady. To Caleb, she says: “But soon. Right?”

He keeps her gaze. His heart, cold; his will, iron. He has chosen to stay. He has chosen this. Whether they hate him or not, whether it hurts, he has chosen to trust them.

(Astrid, Eodwulf— they are gone. For the first time in sixteen years, he finally has an answer for what happened to them after he broke. He fell under the pressure, and they rose up to meet it. He turned away, and they stepped forward. They grew up. They survived. They  _ thrived. _

In a room very far away, but not far enough, Bren has no doubt Trent Ikithon is learning all about him.)

“Yes,” Caleb says. His mouth is dry. He feels heavy— a weight on his shoulders, pressing against his back, slowing his words and weighing his hands, his limbs. Stones tied around his neck, choking off the words. A weight he has always carried, and grown used to, but for once he is more aware of it than ever before. But he thinks of Nott, still holding his hand, of Beauregard, months ago, saying,  _ Don’t run.  _ Remembers, dimly, a voice from long ago:  _ You’ll be okay. Let me help.  _

This time, he does not look away. He meets Beauregard eye-to-eye, and says, “Yes. I promise. Soon.”

She nods. The others settle back. Nott squeezes his hand again. Just like that—the promise made, the date set, his confession pushed back to ruin a different day.

It is probably stupid, Caleb thinks, to feel relieved about it.

.

When he first meets them he is scornful, confused and a little offended, driven away by the sheer force of—everything. The tiefling girl with her bright blue skin and sunny demeanor and her _cheer, _the loud voice, loud clothes, loud smile. She’s like a living spotlight, and it takes all he has not to scoot his chair away. Is her brightness contagious?

And then there’s the other two, too—the rough-and-tumble monk, rude and irritating (likes cats, though, nice to Frumpkin—one point in her favor.) The other, the half-orc—better than the others, sensible at least, a little more polite. Still, obviously bad judgment, what with the company he’s keeping…

And Caleb is considering this, wondering about it all—his proposition to Nott that they find a group to hide with, compared to the sheer goddamn  _ annoyance _ of the group they found, is it worth it, perhaps we should try a different table—and then the other tiefling comes bursting through the doors, gold earrings and sly conman smile, and the taller muscle looming behind him (“the charm,” right, okay—at least she’s less headache-inducing than the others, he’ll give her that.) But they sweep right in, and talk and talk and talk, and before he knows it he’s—promised to go to a circus show with these people, apparently? And then the circus falls, and he finds a book, and they do battle, and…

By the time they leave Trostenwald behind, three days later, Caleb is not yet convinced but he is already falling.

.

He doesn’t expect to sleep well that night, and as usual he is right. His dreams are thin and feverish: dim memories of firelight and laughter, studying in the library; white sheets and a cold hand on his head; a house, burning, and his friends walking away as if nothing is wrong. When he finally wakes up, it’s to the pale blue of far-too-early, and his whole body aches like a bruise. His eyes burn in his skull.

The only one left awake is Fjord, sitting silent in the grass, the last watch. Caleb lays still in his bedroll, Nott a little ball by his side, and considers closing his eyes—going back to restless nightmares, turning away from this conversation once again— but then Fjord looks over, looks at him, and their eyes meet.

Ah. Shit. 

There is no helping it, he thinks— and regardless, he is not sure if he can go back to sleep anyway. He slips out of the bedroll with careful movement, gentle and slow as to not wake Nott. One eye cracks open anyway, a yellow sliver. He tries to smile at her. He is pretty sure he fails, by the way Nott’s nose wrinkles, but she closes her eyes again and so it’s alright.

Fjord is watching him, the barest twitch of a smile on his face at the display. Caleb steps beside him, rubbing at his arms, already chilled. The tiny Hut is useful for keeping out rain, but not so much the wind. “Hello,” he says, quiet, in Zemnian. “Good morning.”

Fjord barely blinks. “Good morning,” he returns, in Common, just as hushed. “…Sleep alright?”

_ No,  _ Caleb thinks, but he does not want to say it, doesn’t want to ruin this moment with ugly truths. So he shrugs, instead, and Fjord nods very quickly, rapid agreement, looking away. 

“Right,” he says. “Right, stupid question. Uh, sorry.”

He doesn’t know how to respond to that, and Caleb hesitates—thinks, ruefully, with some longing, of how nice it would be to just… take a walk, right now, escape this conversation and the very awkward silence growing between them. But—the Hut will vanish, without him, and… he doesn’t want Fjord to think he is running. He imagines that would be a terrible feeling, watching someone leave without knowing if they’ll return, and after yesterday, with Astrid—well. Bren is not in the mood to be cruel, unintentional or not.

So he shrugs, again, and says, “Worth asking, if I was not so fucked up, eh?” and sits besides Fjord before he can think better of it.

Small mercies: Fjord snorts at that, almost without thinking, and then looks startled by his own laughter. Some of the tension in Fjord’s shoulders ease, and one hand lifts to rub at his neck. “Hah, uh… yeah.” 

Silence falls around them, the conversation stalled—but it is not so awkward, now, not so tense. Just quiet, just breathing. The others, still soft in sleep; the world outside the Hut, turning a gentle blue, gold gathering at the edges of the horizon, light flickering through the trees. Caleb should start the teleportation circle soon. As soon as they are ready, they must go. Maybe somewhere by the coast, Nicodranas, so Nott and Jester can see their families…

“Uh, hey. Caleb.”

He turns, just slightly. Looks at Fjord from the corner of his eye. “Yes?”

Fjord is quiet again, hesitating. Chewing on the words, until at last: “You don’t have to tell us everything, if you don’t want to.” 

Caleb goes very still. He doesn’t answer.

“Uh—I mean—what we need to know to, ah, be prepared, that’d be nice. But you don’t… I mean, I’m—I was thinking, I’m the last person to, uh—push for full disclosure, what with…” Fjord rubs at his throat and gestures, vaguely—but Caleb understands his meaning. He turns, facing Fjord fully now, waiting. Fjord, for once, looks unable to meet his eyes. “And I— I won’t lie and say it’s not a relief to be… truthful. But you know, if I’d admitted it any earlier—I don’t think I was ready then. I don’t think it would have helped until—until  _ I  _ was ready, you know? So.”

Fjord pauses, then reaches out, clasping Caleb’s shoulder awkwardly. His hand is large. His grip is warm. And though usually touch makes Caleb’s skin crawl, this once, it is almost comforting. Grounding, in the weight of it, what it means. 

(It is comforting— and yet. Something about that needles at him. Something about that grits at his teeth. Fjord is trying to reassure him. The others are waiting for answers for his sake. Their relief at his return, Nott’s quiet challenge— god, the whole fucking lot of them, letting an assassin go for no other reason than the fact they knew she used to be his friend. 

The knowing burns. The meaning echoes. It settles in his throat like knotted wire, and twists his insides into shreds.)

“So,” Fjord is saying, and Caleb realizes he has curled his hands into fists, broken nails cutting into his palm. “If you want to keep quiet—if you don’t want to share everything—well, just know I’m on your side.”

He doesn’t know what to say to that. He doesn’t have the right thing to say to that. If Fjord had even an inkling of the things Caleb has kept under wraps, he likely wouldn’t make the offer at all. It is— so very stupid, for one, but most of all it just burns, itches under his skin like an oath. 

“Thank you,” he says, because it is what Fjord expects and what Caleb should be saying, anyway. Fjord is a good friend. It is not his fault that Bren is a terrible one. And then, because that thought reminds him, and also he doesn’t want to talk about this anymore, he adds: “I am, uh, I apologize for elbowing you in the face.”

Fjord blinks at him, and then smiles, a little sideways. He pats at Caleb’s shoulder firmly before drawing his hand away. “Don’t worry about it,” he says, sounding relieved. “What’s a bit of friendly fire between friends?” He rolls his eyes, just a bit. “I mean, gods know Nott’s almost killed us all at least once.”

“Nonsense, Nott is a wonderful shot,” Caleb says, automatic defense, but despite himself he is smiling, now—and Fjord, though he turns his head away, is smiling too. It is a nice moment. A good moment.

But under his skin, the fire itches, and Caleb curls his nails into his sleeve.

.

It builds, and builds, and builds. They fight gnolls and rescue kidnapped townspeople; they kill a corrupt politician and help a small kenku find a new home after tragedy. They save people. They do good. They argue and fight and drive him mad on the best days, they badger him when he reads his books, and drag the truth out of him inch by inch—they keep his secrets, they keep him here. They win a stupid fucking drinking competition and set off fireworks in the street. 

Days turn to weeks to months. He gets used to the sound of their voices, their presence as he slips off to sleep. Knows what foods they like and knows which they can’t stand. Fights with them, mourns with them, makes plans over a weathered map,  _ after here we’ll head on over… _ Plans, outlines, promises to stay another day. The expectation that in a month’s time, he will still be traveling by their side.

It’s not like with Astrid and Eodwulf— these people are too wild, too bizarrely chaotic. They don’t treat him like a leader. They do not look to him for guidance, or if they do, it’s almost always with a playful insult in hand. Jester remarks on his clean face. Beauregard accuses him of being a stick in the mud. Fjord listens to him ramble about cats with a pinch between his brow that says he’s listening, but also dearly regrets asking.

Caleb casts Haste. He learns spells for support, he stays in the back, he builds up his spellbook and inch by inch, claws his way closer to the front of the line. He finds that he is growing more confident— not so much in himself, but in them. He finds that he trusts these people to guard his back.

The problem with friends, he tells Beauregard, is that he has to care about them. But even as he says this, even as he insists this, some part of him already knows—he already cares. They are already his.

He is already theirs.

And in that regard, perhaps, Caleb has been doomed from the start.

.

The others wake, and the path continues on—a teleportation circle sketched out on the rocks; pandemonium in the halls. Essek’s initial annoyance that they brought through a whole horse and cart—only to hesitate when he saw Caleb’s face, and teleport them elsewhere in the continent with little pushing, his brow furrowed. Whatever Essek thinks of Caleb, or the strange subdued mood of the rest of the Nein, he does not mention it— now, at least, and in the back of his mind Caleb slots away the look in a folder he’s labeled “complications to deal with later,” with “later” hopefully meaning “never, ever,  _ ever.” _

The day moves on, and they move with it. Their travel takes them to a plain field of waving grasses, caught somewhere between Xhorhas and the coast. Here, the sky is clear and blue and beautiful, and the sunlight sears on the back of his neck. For all that he prefers being clean-shaven, he can not bring himself to shave the growing stubble on his face; he scratches at it intermediately, uneasy with the sensation but finding comfort in the old disguise. They keep going. The sun bears down. His scarf is like a molten noose around his neck. 

By midday, Caleb gives in to the restlessness burrowing its way beneath his skin. He gives Nott’s hand a clumsy pat and tells her not to worry, loud enough for the others to hear, then jumps from the cart and goes on a quick walk to soothe his battered nerves. He paces a few thirty feet away from the cart, back and forth through the field, and he is not as surprised as he could be when Jester joins him. Ever since yesterday, he could tell. The expression on her face, the way she looked at him like she was chewing her words to find the right thing to say… like the itch beneath his skin, Caleb could feel her curiosity like a branding.

And sure enough—she catches up to him quickly, sneaking up to walk beside him. When he turns to face her, she pulls herself upright and takes a deep breath, and then hesitates all at once. 

Caleb crosses his arms, settles back on his heels. The sunlight makes his eyes ache. His neck is sore, his body bruised. He feels old and withered, cankerous and ill-tempered, but it is no fault of hers. He rubs at his eyes and sighs soft through his teeth, steadying himself. 

“Jester,” he says finally, the words stilted on his tongue. “What do you want to ask?”

She startles at this, blinking fast, and looks momentarily guilty—then glances back at the others, far away on the rolling cart, all pretending not to watch them, and turns back to eye him. “Cay _ -leb _ ,” she says, almost playful, if not for the weak strain in the cheery tone, “did you take a walk so you could get me to ask?”

He flushes, a little, and his hand drops from his eyes, waves through the air in a hasty motion. Was he so obvious? “I mean, ah, that is… you looked like you had questions.”

“No, no, I just—! Well,  _ okay,  _ I do, but, I don’t want to…” She trails off, bites her lip. Takes a deep breath, and sets her shoulders like she’s bracing herself. “I… just wanted to know if you were okay.”

He wants to laugh, but he swallows it down, because that is rude, and also he doesn’t want her to think he is angry at her. “No,” he admits, once he’s under control. “No, not really, but… it is over. It is done.”

Jester doesn’t look appeased, though; her face scrunches at his answer, her tail lashing. “Just—I mean—it went  _ so bad,  _ Caleb, and there was so much…” She trails off again, and this time her voice goes small. “Are you mad at us?”

He turns to face her more fully, looking her in the eye as he so rarely does—sees the sincerity there, the honest worry, and feels almost tired. Ah, Jester. She is so kind, and he knows he does not deserve it. “No,” he answers, and this time knows it to be the truth. “I am only angry at myself.”

Something unreadable enters Jester’s eyes, and she looks down. For a moment he almost thinks she won’t ask— but then her jaw firms, and she glances up at him. “…And Astrid?”

There is a sense of danger, suddenly. A warning in the back of his mind. He digs his nails into his arm, keeps himself grounded. His jaw is clenched, so tight his teeth ache. He wants— 

But no. This is Jester, and he knows why she is asking. He doesn’t run, though he hesitates. “...What about her?”

“She made you angry,” Jester recounts, quietly. She doesn’t look annoyed at Caleb’s faked obliviousness; she seems almost sad, and it rankles at him. His knuckles are white around his arm. “You were… you looked like you hated her, Caleb, and I don’t—I mean, from what you said about her…” 

She seems to struggle on the words, but Caleb cannot help her, choking on the silence himself. At last, she concludes, “I just… because she was so important to you, and I think she still is, you know, so I guess… I was wondering… Caleb, what did she say to make you so angry?” 

He is quiet, for a long time. Just breathing. He closes his eyes and thinks of Fjord’s quiet offer, of deflecting, of saying nothing. Jester is so kind. She is so good. Of all the people in this group that he did not want to tell the truth to, she is at the top of the list. Not just for his own sake, but for hers—because he had not wanted her to know that people like that could exist, that sons and daughters could murder loving parents with a smile, that he was one of them. 

But he thinks:  _ She should know.  _ And he knows that lying to her would be a disservice to her, childish Jester—who for all her tricks is not a child. 

He opens his eyes. He meets her gaze. “She told me,” he says, finally, in one simple, even breath, “that she was proud of—of killing her parents in their home. …And that I, too, should be proud for having burned mine.”

It is as if he has slapped her silent. Her hands fall to her sides. She stares at him. For a very long moment, Jester says nothing at all. All the color has drained from her face. Her eyes are wide, and empty. “...What?” she says, and she says it very quietly. She says just that.

“I—I am not proud of it,” Caleb says, stuttering a little on the words, hating the look on her face. “I  _ hate— _ but you, you should know. Because I still did it.” He wants to run and despises himself for it. “I am sorry, Jester.”

Jester is still staring at him, and he should hate that, too—but he feels tired, instead, and turns away. He is decided, somewhere deep in his heart. He knows. He will tell them. He turns and walks away, and leaves Jester behind him.

.

One night they get roaring drunk in a bar and he has a good book to read, so instead of drinking he watches the Mighty Nein fall to the drink one by one and casts Haste on them at various times for his own amusement. By midnight he is melancholy and they are near unconscious, so he sighs very heavily and drags them off into bed with curses and fond insults. He is kindest to Nott, because of course, and Jester, partly because he is fond of her, partly to pay her back, partly because he fears her vengeance should he not. Regardless, he makes sure they all find their beds— and then it is just him, just Caleb (just Bren), and he sips a drink as he watches over them, and he thinks.

He thinks—on how funny it is, how bizarre, how strange it is to be so comfortable with them. He thinks of Yasha, traveling, and hopes she is okay, that she is sleeping soundly. He thinks of Astrid, of Eodwulf, of his parents… of others, too, that they have met. Nila and her family. Keg. Bryce and Alfield. Kiri, and her new adopted family, it has been so long, he hopes they are alright… 

He thinks, too, of Mollymauk. Mollymauk, who is dead, once one of them. And on this night he is reflective, and he is wondering, and the grief is a distant, empty thing, a sort of grief for lost potential, for someone barely known. Because he hadn’t really known the Nein then, Caleb thinks. He was learning, but he had not known them. This is he is almost certain of, because— well. Doesn’t he know them now? By this point, the Mighty Nein are no longer strangers to him, no longer just a means to an end. They are something. They have become something. All his first thoughts and impressions proven wrong, and on this night, Caleb wonders. 

To Mollymauk, long-dead—ah, friend, do you watch over us still? Would you bother? Have we done your memory proud, my friend, have we surpassed even your expectations? 

He finishes his drink and closes his book, goes upstairs to join his family, and thinks— _ I wonder what I would have thought of you, now, what I would have known of you, if you lived past that day.  _

They had all barely been friends, once. It strikes him as strange to think about. Though he will never admit it aloud, there are times when Caleb looks over their group, and finds he can barely imagine a life without them.

.

He leaves Jester silent behind him, and walks back to the cart, his footsteps heavy. He has barely gotten half-way there when Beauregard rushes him, skidding to a stop right in front and throwing up her hands like she can hardly believe him. 

“The fuck was that,” says Beauregard, her eyes flashing, and Caleb looks at her and shrugs. “Don’t you—fucking hell, man, what was  _ that?” _

He realizes, abruptly, that she was eavesdropping, and feels a bizarre mix of emotion—pride, perhaps, that she did so without him catching her; annoyance that it happened at all. The same old exhaustion that’s plagued his heels since yesterday. He closes his eyes. “She deserved to know.” Adds, before she can answer, “I will tell the others tonight—”

The punch catches him right in the jaw.

The hit startles him— he was not expecting it, and he topples back at the blow. He puts a hand to his face and stares up at her, partly from surprise and partly because—it was enough to knock him over but he barely felt the attack at all, and he knows Beauregard can hit harder than  _ that. _

“Fucking hell, Caleb,” Beauregard snaps, and in the next move she is hefting him back to his feet, dragging him by the collar. “I get being angry, I get wanting to break things, but just because you’re feeling shitty doesn’t mean you take it out on us!”

For a moment he is frozen. In the next, he is irritated. “I was not—”

“Cut the shit, yeah?” Beauregard shakes him, just once. “If you’re angry at me, take it out on me. If you’re angry at Nott—hell,  _ still _ take it out on me, if you get mad at Nott you’re just gonna get even worse, do not. If you’re angry at you—fuck! I get it!” Another shake. “But don’t fucking do that, don’t hurt us to hurt you, yeah? That’s shit. That’s—we’re your friends, asshole.”

He falls quiet, his mind whirling. He had not meant… but there’s something hot coiling up in his insides, and he knows shame when he feels it. He had. Jester, the kindest of them, always so set on lifting spirits, the one he had wanted to learn of his past least of all—oh, yes. He had. 

He can’t meet Beauregard’s eyes, suddenly, and when she drops him back on his feet he almost stumbles. “I…” 

She doesn’t cut him off, this time. She doesn’t give him an out. He grits his teeth, and the words trail off. 

There is a long pause. Beauregard sighs, and punches him again, on the arm. “Asshole,” she says, and she’s quieter, now, not so much gentle as she is calm. “Look, man, your past is your shit. You don’t have to tell the whole story if you don’t want to. But just—don’t  _ do _ that, okay?”

He stares at his shoes and squeezes his eyes shut. He doesn’t want to tell them. And yet—he is starting to realize that some part of him does. He wants it gone. He wants them to know. He wants to put to rest the quiet, furious little voice in the back of his head, Bren at his worst, hissing that he was better on his own, and  _ see how loyal these people will be, once they actually know you.  _

“Beauregard,” he says, halting, hesitant. The itch burns beneath his skin. He puts his hand over his arm, and doesn’t scratch. “You will—be here. When I—tell the story. Yes?” 

Beauregard is quiet for only a moment; when she speaks she almost stutters, caught off-guard. “I—yeah. Yeah, of course.”

He does not deserve it. He closes his eyes. “Thank you,” he says, in Zemnian. “My friend. Thank you for everything.”

Beauregard blinks at him. “ _ Danke  _ I know,” she says, suspicious. “What was all that other stuff?” 

Bizarrely, despite the growing exhaustion, he almost wants to smile. He tamps it down and shakes his head, and moves past her. “It means,” he says, “that you are right, and I should tell them now, get it over with— and, ah, I should probably a-apologize, or, explain myself, to Jester, before my stupidity hurts her further.”

Behind him, Beauregard says, “Caleb!”

He turns.

“Look, I’m— sorry about— all that. Yesterday. Okay? Just—no matter what, look, I’m with you. Got it? We’re not like—you know— you’re my friend. Uh. And I...” She tilts her chin. “I’m… going to get Fjord and Caduceus now, okay, bye.”

He watches her walk away. And strangely, despite the pit in his gut, despite the fear and lingering weight of trauma behind the building memory, the story he is about to tell, the actions he must explain in full—

He is smiling, faintly, as he walks back to Jester’s side.

.

There is a night—before the Laughing Hand, before Obann, before… everything—a night, calm, when Yasha is with them, and he stays up for watch and she stays up with him. Late past the midnight hour, in the open air and cold winds of a barren land, devoid of people. It is a quiet night. It is a gentle night. 

Yasha seems lost in thought, and Caleb is similar; for most of the watch they sit together in peaceful silence. At some point someone in the group gives a horrific snore, and Caleb rolls his eyes, and Yasha gives that faint half-smile of hers and says, apropos of nothing, “They’re wonderful, aren’t they?” 

She says it quiet, half-under her breath; almost, in a way, as if she cannot believe it. He looks back at her and studies her face, and then turns his eyes back to the group. He understands Yasha. They are similar, in this way—learning once more how to be people, how to be  _ with  _ people, how to come to terms with wanting to stay, after years and years of running.

“Yes,” he says, “They are the best,” and Yasha hums in quiet agreement, and he smiles at the ground—

In this moment, in this night, the shadows are lessened. The weight, less. The memories, despite their clarity, seem dim in comparison to this reality. He tilts his head and watches the stars, and in this moment he is almost content.

-

Jester has not moved; she is sitting on the ground where he left her, knees drawn up, gaze distant. She starts when he approaches, and trips back up on her feet, and he is—he feels it, now, the guilt, because he had known that the words would hurt her and he had known what he was saying and how those words would  _ hit _ hardest of all. He looks away and rubs at his arms, because he does not know how to apologize for this yet, for saying the truth but saying it in such a way that it was almost a lie.

“Caleb,” Jester says. She sounds— her voice is tight, tense, like she’s trying not to cry. He hunches his shoulders. 

“I, I— I am sorry, Jester.”

A pause. She sniffles, and he sees a flash of her sleeve as she scrubs at her eyes. “You… you were lying?”

For a moment his mouth goes numb; his tongue heavy, weighed down by stones. He swallows hard. “No,” Caleb admits. “But I should not—I should not have—said it like that.”

“Oh,” Jester says. She sniffles again, then takes a deep breath. “Caleb?”

“…Yes?”

“Can I hug you?”

His throat is very tight, suddenly. “Oh, Jester.”

“Sorry. Sorry. I know you don’t like to be touched—”

He doesn’t, and right now, as he is… his nerves alight, his skin crawling, his scars burning beneath his skin… no, he thinks, he could not deal with it, though he hates to deny her the comfort. He holds out his hands instead, almost helpless, a useless movement— but Jester takes them gratefully, clings tight, and smiles wavering but strong. Her cheeks are dry, but her eyes are red. When she squeezes his hands, it is gentle. 

“There is more, to—to everything,” he manages, at last, through the silence and the fumbling of his words. “I—I, I do not think it makes it better, no matter what Nott will tell you, but—but you should know, I am sorry, I should not—have said it in that way.”

Jester squeezes his hands, and his mouth snaps shut. She’s looking at his palms. Her eyes rest heavy on the thin scars just poking from his sleeve.

“You’re my friend,” she says, very quiet. “A-and I—I think—what I said before, in Felderwin—I think you’re a good person, Caleb.” She swallows hard, and clutches tight at his fingers. “I don’t think you’d care so much about being good if you weren’t.”

He thinks it’s a pretty lie, but he knows better than to tell her this—and just this once, he closes his eyes and accepts it. These people, the Mighty Nein… he does not deserve them. He doesn’t deserve any of it, but he has never felt more grateful to have them there.

“There is more,” he says, at last, and finally manages to look up, to meet her eyes. “Please, my friend—will you listen?”

“Yes,” Jester says, and she smiles, and despite his fear, Caleb feels a little better. To know he has not ruined this. To know— to have this.

He walks back to the fire, and Jester follows him. Beauregard is there, and the others, too—Fjord, Caduceus, Nott. He sits and Nott takes his hand. He breathes, and Beauregard leans back against him—side to side, one hand at his back. Jester folds her skirts and smiles at him, still pale but grimly determined. Fjord gives a little nod. Caduceus, ever calm, sips his tea and smiles, warm, despite everything.

He meets their eyes, and he finds—sudden, startled—he finds that he is not afraid. He is not scared. The itch beneath his skin has quieted. The low burn of anger faded. He looks across the fire and sees his family looking back, and it is like something at last slots into place. He can let them help. He can believe in them. And he looks at Nott, and he thinks— _ bravery _ —and finally understands.

He takes a breath. He has lied for a long time. He has told this story only once before, and even then, never truly in full. But he thinks, now, that he can tell them this. He thinks he is ready to say it. 

“I am going to tell you,” he says, “the story of how I murdered my mother and father.” 

There is history battering down at the corners of his mind. Old lessons scarred into his skin. A quiet hiss at the back of his mind, sometimes Bren, sometimes Ikithon, that reminds him of all the worst scenarios. The memory of Astrid and Eodwulf, years ago, their faces warped by the firelight, their eyes cold. The memory of Astrid, just yesterday, different in some ways but still the same, still heartbreakingly unchanged, horrifically unbreaking. He remembers the way she looked in the firelight. He remembers the way her smile twists.

He looks across and meets their eyes, and remembers—  _ Don’t run,  _ and  _ Let me help,  _ and he remembers,  _ Trust in us a little. _

He tells the Mighty Nein of a boy named Bren Aldric Ermendrud, and in the back of his mind, a ghost lingers still. Echoes of the years he both can barely remember and can never forget. A cold hand at his temple, a quiet voice; midnight hours in a library, ink-smudged smiles. A life left behind, and sometimes that last whisper of Bren-as-was echoes in his ears: Is this the right choice? Is this the right path to take? 

He doesn’t know. He will never know. But as he completes his story and waits for the verdict, the taste of ash heavy on his tongue, he watches his family rise, and knows, if nothing else, that he is a happier man because of them. 

.

.

.

_ Bren Aldric Ermendrud is meant for great things. He knows this. His family knows this. His friend, the village, Trent Ikithon— he will hear these words again and again for all his life. He is meant for something. To be something. To do great things. _

_ But before he is a Scourger, before he is a student, before everything: he is a child of the Zemni Fields. He skips rocks through the grasses and talks to that quiet girl under the tree. He meets a boy named Eodwulf and begs for his help in getting poor Frumpkin the cat from his rooftop. He darts his hand through the fire. He helps his mother bake bread.  _

_ He is young, he is bold, he is bright and he is clever. But before success, before expectations, before he gains a taste of power—his mother sweeps him up on her knee, and brushes back his hair. Kisses his forehead, and wraps him in her arms. His father is coming home, and his silhouette is tall and bold against the afternoon sun. His hand is warm on Bren’s head.  _

_ “My boy,” his mother says, half-laughing, half-true. “What on earth are you going to do, hm? Who are you going to be?” _

_ He is young, and bright, and clever. He leans back in her hold and smiles wide. His mother asks him who he wants to be—  _

_ And Bren tells her, “I want to be happy.” _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know that feeling where you're sort of helplessly angry, not really at anyone but just in general, and kind of feeling terrible, and everyone is being nice to you and you HATE it, because you're mad at you and you want them to be mad too? Just to make it easier? Anyway, that's Caleb. 
> 
> I debated a lot on whether I wanted to include his story, or the Nein's reactions to it... but I feel better about leaving it off here. We already know, in a way, what their reactions will be, especially by this point. There's no need to tell that story. Caleb's struggle with coming to terms with his past, and his internal journey on whether he's willing to take that final step into trusting all of them, into leaning on them, was something that struck me as far more interesting. So.... *jazz hands* ta-dahhhh
> 
> I may write another fic for this universe at some point (I've grown... very attached to my version of the woman at the asylum), but either way, more critical role fics are definitely looming on the horizon!! Thanks so much for sticking with me through this story. I hope you enjoyed it!
> 
> If you have any questions or just want to talk, [my tumblr](http://izaswritings.tumblr.com) is always open!!
> 
> Any final thoughts?

**Author's Note:**

> Again, if you’re a new reader to this story and want to know how the reunion goes down, the actual reunion and such is dealt with [**here!**](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20262208/chapters/48025960) It’s an Astrid-pov story of those events. This chapter set up the main confrontation, but I’ve been thinking about just skipping straight to that sweet, sweet aftermath, so the actual reunion will remain solely in Astrid’s pov. (Caleb gets to deal with fallout, friends, and uncomfortable backstory questions! Caleb is having a bad day.)
> 
> There were a few songs I listened to on repeat when writing: Astrid’s main ones were “Me and My Friends Are Lonely” and “We Have It All,” while Caleb’s was a mix of “Me and My Friends Are Lonely”, “Apres Moi”, “I Found”, “Liar” (by Arcadian Wild), and “Welcome Home, Son” respectively. Caleb’s is a complicated playlist. 
> 
> If you have any questions or just want to talk, [my tumblr](http://izaswritings.tumblr.com) is always open!!
> 
> Any thoughts?


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